[Deck] Aluren

[Toad]

This was posted on TheManaDrain yesterday evening, but I might as well post that here, people might be interested in the deck. Two of my testing partners took the deck to GP Lille and both made Top32 after a 7-1-1 record Day 1.

1. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY DECKLIST

Aluren is probably my favourite deck ever. I played It in Extended before the last rotation with good success. When the two Legacy Grand Prix were announced by WOTC, I decided to start working actively on Legacy with some good friends. Two of these were also Aluren addicts, so Aluren soon became one of our primary focuses. We browsed MTGTheSource forums for a while looking for interesting ideas, but all the builds we could found were extremely bad, mainly based around the Extended core (that means, Living Wish, Cloud of Faeries, Maggot Carrier and Auriok Champion), but with terrible cards like Lotus Petal or Elvish Spirit Guide. In Legacy, playing a true Combo deck based on a 4CC card is strictly impossible, because of cards like Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Force of Will and Daze. That means the deck has to be turned into a Control-Combo deck (and not the other way around) in order to be competitive in Legacy. Raven Familiar and Cavern Harpy being blue, the deck can easily support Force of Will. Counterspell is obviously not a solution here, but with Intuitions and plenty creatures, you get to run the best black card in the format, Cabal Therapy. Against Aggro decks, Walls are your primary Control component.

I started to actively discuss on Aluren in August with Sylvain Lauriol and Kevin Desprez, with Pierre Canali and Wilfried Ranque joining the group later on. Our primary testings with ports from decklists played in 2002 gave us really strong results against most of the so-called Legacy best decks, Goblins, Landstill and High Tide. Back then, Landstill was still heavily played, and the fact that It was a complete bye for Aluren decided us to keep working on it. Back then, our list still had Extended stuff such as Living Wish, but these got cut soon after, because we didn't want to bastardize our sideboard with poor cards. Also, Living Wish's speed is a liability when facing Goblins, since you hardly want to waste your turn 2 doing nothing but a Living Wish while being smashed by a Goblin Lackey.

// Aluren
// Pre Ravnica and Pre GP Philadelphia decklist
// Mana Base
1 Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
// Combo cards
2 Spike Feeder
3 Man-o'-War
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Raven Familiar
4 Aluren
// Control
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
4 Force of Will
// Draw and Tutors
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Wall of Blossoms
SB: 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Hydroblast
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 Eladamri's Vineyard
SB: 3 Elephant Grass

I won a couple of tournaments with this decklist. Sideboard is heavily oriented against Aggro decks, with some versatile cards to bring against Combo and Control too. More testings shown us that Cavern Harpy was by far the worst card in the deck. Basically, you never want to see one in your opening hand, you just want to dig into one while Comboing off, through repeated Raven Familiar and Man'O-War abuse. Ravnica gave us an interesting card to work with, Chord of Calling. The 4th Cavern Harpy was quickly cut for a singleton Chord of Calling, which gives you more Raven Familiars and can be used to get a Cavern Harpy too.

Then came GP Philadephia, and an overwhelming Threshold showing. Because of Threshold's fast clock backed up with disruption (Meddling Mage) and countermagic, we decided to maindeck the 4th Wal of Blossoms and a second Chain of Vapor.

2. GP LILLE DECKLIST

In the end, Pierre Canali and Wilfried Ranque decided to pick Aluren for GP Lille, and ended up both Top32 after a 7-1-1 record during Day 1 (with Wilfried's only loss funily being to Pierre). Kevin Desprez and myself were judging, and Sylvain Lauriol opted for UGr Threshold at the last minute for some reason. Both played slightly different versions of the deck, the most important being Ranque's maindeck Eladamri's Vineyards (Canali had them in the sideboard only). The mana bases were also slightly different. I'm not really sold on the maindeck Vineyards, and I think 3 Cavern Harpies are needed in the deck because of Intuition and Force of Will. Here is what I would have played at the GP. It's basically a mix of both decklists. I dislike the City of Traitors, but It has Its uses in some matchups.

// Aluren
// Suggested Decklist post GP Lille
// Mana Base
1 Island
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
// Combo cards
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
2 Man-o'-War
3 Cavern Harpy
4 Raven Familiar
4 Aluren
// Control
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
// Draw and Tutors
1 Chord of Calling
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Mystic Remora
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 Eladamri's Vineyard
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Hydroblast

3. HOW DO YOU PLAY THE DECK?

Aluren is probably one of the most difficult decks to play perfectly in Magic, and for sure the hardest deck to play in Legacy. It has dozens of tricks and non obvious card interactions that It gives you fast headaches if you don't have some automatisms with it, since there are plenty plays to do in response to each other and controlling the stack is sometimes tricky. As a reward, the good thing is that your opponent will hardly know when to play his hate cards properly, and that will win you many games. The main Combo is divided in 6 steps.

1. Use Raven Familiars and Cavern Harpies to dig into the deck to find a Man'O-War and the Spike Feeder.
2. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Spike Feeder loop to get a large amount of life.
3. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Wall of Roots loop to get a large amount of Green mana.
4. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Spike Feeder loop to turn your creatures into big monsters.
5. Recur all your Force of Wills and Cabal Therapies with an Eternal Witness loop and pass the turn.
6. Attack on the next turn for the win.

4. QUICK CARD BY CARD ANALYSIS

* 3 Cavern Harpies : the worst card in the deck, but needed for the Combo. 3 is enough, especially with Chord of Calling and Man'O-Wars.
* 2 Chains of Vapor : deals with problematic permanents before going off (Mages and Needles), and acts as a pseudo Harpy when going off. Incredibly strong and versatile.
* 1 Chord of Calling : Better than Cavern Harpy and usually free when going off. A strong addition.
* 3 Force of Will : 4th one is hardly needed, so thrown in the sideboard for Combo and Threshold matchups.
* 1 Eternal Witness : versatile utility and strong card when going off.

5. RANDOM MATCHUPS ANALYSIS

* Goblins
Game 1 is easy when on the play because of the 8 Walls to block Goblin Lackey. On the draw a first turn Lackey is obviously a serious threat but can still be managed with good Wall draws or Chain of Vapor for tempo. You goldfish faster than them anyways. You got 6 answers to Lackey game 2, and still 8 Walls to stop the rush. Their only threat is Red Elemental Blast, but It's rather easy to play around. Overall a slightly favourable matchup if you know what you are doing perfectly. Otherwise, they wreck you.

* Landstill
An easy matchup. Just play draw-wall-go until you get the Combo in hand, wreck them with a Cabal Therapy and win. Landstill has to be the Aggro deck in the matchup, and 4-6 manlands will hardly make it, especially since they run billions of dead cards against you (Swords to Plowshares, Akroma's Vengeance, Wrath of God, Nevinyral's Disk...). Post sideboard, Pernicious Deed takes care of Arcane Laboratories and Meddling Mages all day long.

* Mono White Control
You cant lose to first turn Plains, EOT cycle Secluded Steppe. A complete bye. Their only problematic card is Humility, which is extremely slow. And they can't stop your Chain of Vapor anyways. Oh, and Pernicious Deed.

* RW Lightning Rift
A bit harder than MWC because turn 2 Rift is a decent clock, but still a very easy matchup. Post board BEB allows you to go into late game, and you always win if you manage to do so.

* BW Suicide
A nightmare matchup. You can hardly expcet to win more than 1 game out of 4. Luckily, the deck is bad, so that's hardly a concern.

* UGw Threshold
Meddling Mage is annoying but can be dealt with thanks for Chain of Vapor or Man'O-War backed up with Force of Will or Cabal Therapy. The 8 Walls buy a lot of turns in this matchup, which means you are almost Daze proof. Post sideboard Pernicious Deed destroys them and Mystic Remora is huge. They have to bring in Swords to Plowshares to get rid of your Walls, which is a good thing. Mystic Enforcer is a serious threat though. Slightly favourable overall.

* UGr Threshold
Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice make that you can hide behind your Walls forever. Luckily, they don't have Meddling Mage to disrupt you and a single Cabal Therapy is usually enough to go off without problems. Post sideboard Red Blasts are annoying, but Pernicious Deed and Remora are awesome too. I'd say the matchup is even.

* Affinity
The only way they can win is with double Disciple of the Vault or a very fast Cranial Plating on a flying dude. If they don't, you should win most of the games without too many problems. It's overall a good matchup.

* UWg(r/b) Confinement / Life from the Loam
We didn't playtest the matchup a lot and we didnt expected the deck to be heavily played anyways. If they get Confinement out, It becomes extremely hard to win because you can't back up your Chain of Vapor with Cabal Therapies. Otherwise, It's a good matchup. I'd say Confinement has the edge in the matchup, but only by a small margin. Post sideboard Pernicious Deeds are good, as are more Force of Wills and Cabal Therapies.

* Non Blue Confinement / Life From the Loam decks (CAL variants)
Confinement is not a threat because of Chain of Vapor. A very fast Assault is annoying, which is why you'll bring the Blue Blast post board. If Assault doesnt stay on the board, they have no way to kill you, and you'll always wreck them in the late game.

[Peter_Rotten]

Aluren is probably one of the most difficult decks to play perfectly in Magic, and for sure the hardest deck to play in Legacy. It has dozens of tricks and non obvious card interactions that It gives you fast headaches if you don't have some automatisms with it, since there are plenty plays to do in response to each other and controlling the stack is sometimes tricky. As a reward, the good thing is that your opponent will hardly know when to play his hate cards properly, and that will win you many games.
I have always found that in general the best time to play your hate, is in response to the Harpy. This forces the Aluren player to have at least another Raven in hand. I've often found that if they are able to resolve a Harpy (with something worth gating) then I am sure to lose.

Have you found that Wirewood Savage (that guy that draws cards if you resolve a beast) to be unnecessary? He was amazing in the lesser builds that were running around here.

Also, have you found any splash damage from E-Plague? Plague naming Harpy is ugly, but if a deck is playing Plague, then it is probably a black disruption deck that is beating you anyway.

[MattH]

Plague naming Harpy would be spectacularly bad, as harpy is a Beast. I know what you meant, though. ;D

[Lukas Preuss]

Nice summary. That deck definitely looks very interesting. Have you tested the Solidarity matchup? To me, it seems that 3 Cabal Therapy should not be enough to disrupt them. Am I wrong?

[frogboy]

No Living Wish, Wirewood Savage, Maggot Carrier, or Auriok Champion? Why not win the same turn you play Aluren?

Also, against aggro, it seems like just winning on turn four is a fine option as opposed to playing some random walls.

[Nightmare]

Here's a question in regard to a post on TMD, since I don't post over there, but I do lurk.



I think that Solidarity might be a difficult matchup as well.
Once again, if you manage to go off, High Tide will have hard times to resolve its namesake when facing infinite Force of Will recursion.

In order to realize that, just consider the following plays :
1. Go off and get 7 blue cards in hand, including 4 Force of Wills (or less if a FOW got pitched to FOW), before passing the turn.
2. Force the first 3 spells played by the opponent.
3. If you have to cast FOW after that, return a Cavern Harpy to your hand, play it, get a Man-O'War back, play it, get the Eternal Witness back, play it, grab a Force of Will. Repeat at will.

You don't have infinite Blue mana. You have infinite recursion, but you have 22 Pitchable spells including 3x Force of Will. That isn't even close to infinite. Not to mention that to go off, you actually play spells. 1x Brainfreeze wins the game. Did I miss something?

[Toad]

I have always found that in general the best time to play your hate, is in response to the Harpy. This forces the Aluren player to have at least another Raven in hand.

The best moment to play the Disenchant effect is indeed in response to the Cavern Harpy. Nevertheless, in response to that hate card, you can often start digging into cards with Raven Familiar, and try to find a Man'O-War for 3 more cards, a Chain of Vapor or a Cavern Harpy for going off, or a Force of Will. This means you are not really vulnerable to Disenchant effects. Cabal Therapy also gets rid of these. Creature removal is also not a problem if you cast Cavern Harpy before the Raven Familiar.


Have you found that Wirewood Savage (that guy that draws cards if you resolve a beast) to be unnecessary?

Wirewood Savage is not really needed. The deck wants to focus on useful cards, and cut all the fancy stuff for that. Wirewood Savage would likely own the mirror match, but that's completely irrelevant. Man-O'Wars usually do what Wirewood Savage is supposed to do, except Man-O'Wars can be pitched to FOW, deal with Meddling Mage and other things.


Also, have you found any splash damage from E-Plague? Plague naming Harpy is ugly, but if a deck is playing Plague, then it is probably a black disruption deck that is beating you anyway.

The comment about Engineering Plague is valid, but not really problematic, since B/W Suicide like decks are already awful matchups, Plagues or no. Discard and mana denial are usually enough to beat you. I'd probably sideboard out the Plagues with B/W against Aluren, since these are rather slow and can be easily dealt with through Chain of Vapor or Pernicious Deed. Mana and hand control are far better.


Have you tested the Solidarity matchup? To me, it seems that 3 Cabal Therapy should not be enough to disrupt them.

We tested the High Tide matchup a bit, both Instant and Sorcery speed builds, but not that much since we didn't consider the deck as a DTB in Legacy. They have 4 Force of Wills, you have these and 3 Cabal Therapies (and the 4th one sideboard). Both decks have similar goldfish rates, so you have the edge there. Going off is tricky here, since you are making Storm for them, but a single Cabal Therapy will usually seal the deal. Pierre and Wilfried actually had no dedicated cards in their sideboard for this matchup.


No Living Wish, Wirewood Savage, Maggot Carrier, or Auriok Champion? Why not win the same turn you play Aluren?

No Living Wish because It's far too slow for Legacy. On turn 2 you want to stop a Nimble Mongoose or a Goblin Lackey. No Wirewood Savage for the reasons mentionned above. No Maggot Carrier or Auriok Champion because these are completely useless unless you are already winning, and when you are winning, winning with your engine is far. The deck runs no maindeck dead cards. Then, no real need to win the turn you play Aluren. I mean, no deck is able to deal an infinite amount of damage when facing a dozen of Force of Will recursion in a single turn.


Also, against aggro, it seems like just winning on turn four is a fine option as opposed to playing some random walls.

Aluren is by nature a slow Combo deck. It can go off consistently on turn 4. That means you have to play some Walls to do that. Nevertheless, these Walls are good because they are versatile. Wall of Blossoms draws a card. Wall of Roots makes mana. Why would you ever want to go off turn 4 when one of the best deck in the format maindecks Daze? There is really no point winning balls-on-the-table on turn 4 when you can go off on turn 5 or 6 with quadruple Cabal Therapy backup. You are probably misunderstanding the fundamental concept of Aluren. You can't play It as a pure goldfish Combo deck.


You have infinite recursion, but you have 22 Pitchable spells including 3x Force of Will. That isn't even close to infinite.

Yeah well, not infinite. But 22 or something potential Force of Wills will always beat a 7-cards hand.


Not to mention that to go off, you actually play spells. 1x Brainfreeze wins the game. Did I miss something?

Yep, you missed Cabal Therapy naming Brain Freeze :)

[Slay]

Flame deleted---Frogboy

I just goldfished the deck you put up, thirty times. I'm not some random noob who just decided to pick up Aluren and give it a try, I've been playing and tweaking my 1.5 Aluren deck for well over a year. In those thirty games, I was only able to successfully goldfish a turn 4 or turn 5 kill TWICE. In over half of the games I had to wait until at least turn EIGHT to win, and this is playing without enemy resistance. There were, in my testing, over three quarters of the games where I found myself in topdeck mode as early as TURN TWO. In forcing myself to go off, I dealt myself around 7-9 damage from Cavern Harpies. Against any deck with direct damage, that is simply unacceptable.

This does not even take into account all the hate people have in their sideboards for combo.

All the fancy walls and defensive tempo gainers can't get around the fact that you're still a 3 card combo deck with 4 Brainstorms and 3 Intuitions and a single Chord of Calling. No, I don't count Raven Familiar, because it's vulnerable to just about every creature hate in the format and if he isn't killed, becomes a Strategic Planning for 4UU. And if it dies or is countered, it's another combo card you have to find to go off. It is amazingly improbable for anyone to draw a three-card combo(where you only have 3 of one particular card) with such consistency that you can actually race Solidarity.

At the very least, you need another tutor or another good creature with Aluren in there. I suggest Lim Dul's Vault. Cut some basic forests, you don't need to hit 4 mana on turn 4 anyways because you're probably not going to go off then anyways - your deck is too inconsistent.

If you want to prove me wrong, I'd be glad to hear your arguments. But at least provide some sample goldfish hands. I want to see how you play this deck out.
-Slay



Edited By frogboy on 1135193807

[kirdape3]

You know, I thought that too until I got bashed by it a lot. Pierre Canali's also a lot better at Magic than you are, so he's probably not going to lose to subtle, small errors. While I wouldn't play it if you held a gun to my head, it's good in the hands of a good player.

Goldfishing this deck is, while not futile, less than optimal because it's a control deck with a combo-kill. Most often you're not going to bother to race anybody because you don't have to - you block Goblins until it's too late and you have functionally infinite life and no other deck really puts pressure on your life total well enough.

Remember kids, this deck is probably out of your skill level and especially your current skill-set to play properly. That's the real drawback.

[Toad]

I'm not some random noob who just decided to pick up Aluren and give it a try, I've been playing and tweaking my 1.5 Aluren deck for well over a year.
Playing Aluren for a year is nothing. I've been playing the deck for more than 4 years now, and I still discover new tricks every once in a while.


In those thirty games, I was only able to successfully goldfish a turn 4 or turn 5 kill TWICE. In over half of the games I had to wait until at least turn EIGHT to win, and this is playing without enemy resistance.
I'm sorry, I don't get this argument. There is a Landstill thread in your DTB forum. I doubt Landstill can goldfish on turn 8 even without enemy resistance. You are misunderstanding what Aluren is. It is not a Combo deck. It is a Controlish deck with a Combo finish.


There were, in my testing, over three quarters of the games where I found myself in topdeck mode as early as TURN TWO.
Mulligan?


In forcing myself to go off, I dealt myself around 7-9 damage from Cavern Harpies. Against any deck with direct damage, that is simply unacceptable.
I usually need 3 to 4 life to go off thanks to Man-O'War and Chain of Vapor. You are probably playing the deck wrong.


This does not even take into account all the hate people have in their sideboards for combo.
Is this taking Pernicious Deeds into account? Pierre and Wilfried faced Pithing Needles, Arcane Laboratories, Rules of Law, Seals of Cleansing, Disenchants, Naturalizes, Humilities and Pyrostatic Pillars all days long. They still made Top32 at a 900-players tournament. With a 7-1-1 record Day 1. I saw most of their matches, they faced many Goblins, many UGw Threshold, many UGr Threshold, some Burn, a WR Rift, a Zoo, a MWC, two Landstill and other stuff I forgot. Hardly a non relevant field. I'd bet all these are considered as good decks in Legacy. We playtested the deck against dozens of Legacy archetypes. I got tons of testing data and matchup statistics. They picked Aluren for a reason ;)


But at least provide some sample goldfish hands. I want to see how you play this deck out.
Thats, hmm, rather pointless. Aluren is all about stack interactions and tricking the opponent into mistakes. You can't goldfish that.

[Slay]

Playing Aluren for a year is nothing. I've been playing the deck for more than 4 years now, and I still discover new tricks every once in a while.

Are you telling me that an extra 3 years is the difference betrween a 25% win ratio and a 50+% win ratio? Baloney.


I'm sorry, I don't get this argument. There is a Landstill thread in your DTB forum. I doubt Landstill can goldfish on turn 8 even without enemy resistance. You are misunderstanding what Aluren is. It is not a Combo deck. It is a Controlish deck with a Combo finish.

Aluren does not play with unrestricted Ancestral Recall, or Fact or Fiction, or 8 counterspells, or 10+ board control spells. It plays Walls, and 6 disruption spells, 3 of which are card disadvantage usually and 3 of which don't do crap against a card ripped off the top. Its board control is 2 Chain of Vapor. Its draw engine is Brainstorm. Landstill is in the DTB forum because its control elements are incredibly powerful. Saying this deck's control elements are lacking is a serious understatement.


Mulligan?

When almost all of my hands are pretty terrible, I fail to see how mulliganing would help.


I usually need 3 to 4 life to go off thanks to Man-O'War and Chain of Vapor. You are probably playing the deck wrong.

Seeing as how a monkey could goldfish the deck at that point, I doubt it has to do with that.


Is this taking Pernicious Deeds into account?

So now our combo consists of a 4-of, another 4-of, a 3-of, and a 2-of. Awesome!


Pierre and Wilfried faced Pithing Needles, Arcane Laboratories, Rules of Law, Seals of Cleansing, Disenchants, Naturalizes, Humilities and Pyrostatic Pillars all days long. They still made Top32 at a 900-players tournament. With a 7-1-1 record Day 1. I saw most of their matches, they faced many Goblins, many UGw Threshold, many UGr Threshold, some Burn, a WR Rift, a Zoo, a MWC, two Landstill and other stuff I forgot. Hardly a non relevant field. I'd bet all these are considered as good decks in Legacy. We playtested the deck against dozens of Legacy archetypes. I got tons of testing data and matchup statistics. They picked Aluren for a reason ;)

Ah-ah-ah. You aren't allowed to make the "they're better players than you" argument to justify this deck's non-suckiness. You yourself stated that you regarded BW Deadguy as trash. Well, if a crappy deck placed in the T2 of a Grand Prix, maybe playskill has a lot more to do with his deck, and similarly, your deck winning than you think.


Thats, hmm, rather pointless. Aluren is all about stack interactions and tricking the opponent into mistakes. You can't goldfish that.

When your opponent's plan is to play dudes, smash, then cast burn spells to finish you off, and deals 20 consistently at around turn 6, outplaying your opponent is pretty damn obviated.
-Slay

[kirdape3]

Actually, I'm saying that the deck is only FOR good players, since they themselves won't lose games with it.

This deck is to allow the maximum abuse of superior skill over an opponent.

If you're that much better than the other guy, why play a simpler deck when you can make him do all sorts of stupid things with a deck that you know and he doesn't? Look at Karsten's deck from Worlds this year. It's by FAR the hardest deck to pilot at maximal efficiency, but it also leads his opponents down all sorts of wrong plays.

[Slay]

I understand that.

However, what I'm saying is that this deck is so bad that it requires abusing your skill over lesser players in order to win the game. That is, its goldfish is so low and its control presence is so minimal that by and large, other decks could goldfish you and win. Your opponent making mistakes based on your deck is largely dependant on him caring about what you do, which, insofar as I have seen, he simply does not have to.
-Slay

[blacklotus3636]

I'm not sure if all of what slay said about the deck is true because I haven't tested the deck myself and to be honest slay you seem to be a cynic. I would think that this deck is as suckie as slay says by looking at it but that isn't everything. If it's true what is said about the play skill aspect why wouldn't better players play good decks(like Gro)? Besides if it really is play skill that wins it games it's not the deck that deserves praise it's the player.
One more thing, just because a pro can win with mono blue wizards it doesn't make that deck good.

P.S I'm sorry if I offended you slay but it seems as though you are always critisizing everything

[Toad]

Are you telling me that an extra 3 years is the difference betrween a 25% win ratio and a 50+% win ratio?
Could be yeah. Also, I didn't find your decklists in some forum here, so I don't know if you are playing builds with Man'O-Wars and Spike Feeder or builds with Wirewood Savage and Soul Warden likes. These builds are extremely different to pilot, so a year of experience with these is really nothing. They only have their core card in common, but play totally different.


Aluren does not play with unrestricted Ancestral Recall, or Fact or Fiction, or 8 counterspells, or 10+ board control spells.
Landstill's "unrestricted Ancestral Recall" is hot against first turn Goblin Lackey, first turn Aether Vial or first turn Nimble Mongoose. Landstill's "unrestricted Ancestral Recall" is also hot after the opponent dropped his turn 2 Lightning Rift. It's also awesome to have that on the board when your opponent is going to Cabal Therapy 3 times in a row. But whatever, Aluren outdraws Landstill. You are not playing with 8 counterspells, right. You can have 4 Force of Wills and 4 Cabal Therapies if needed. Cabal Therapy is so much better than Counterspell in billions of matchups you know? Then, board Control spells. You have 10. Landstill has 4 spells that are crap against Nimble Mongoose (Swords to Plowshares), Aluren has 2 (Chain of Vapor). Wall of Roots and Wall of Blossoms hold Threshold's army for ages, and for a mere 2 mana. Are you really telling me you are planning to resolve a Wrath of God, a Moat or a Humility against Threshold's 4 Force of Will, 3 Counterspells, 3 Dazes? Please? Ah, and Wall of Blossoms is a board Control card that cantrips and has synergy with Cabal Therapy. Good luck doing something useful with Swords to Plowshares and Wrath of God against MWC, WR Rift, High Tide, Belcher, Ill-Gotten Storm, Confinement, Aluren and some others.


Landstill is in the DTB forum because its control elements are incredibly powerful.
When playtesting the Aluren vs. Landstill matchup, nothing was more funnier to see Landstill with a hand full of powerful control elements like Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, Akroma's Vengeance and others when going off through Cabal Therapy.


Seeing as how a monkey could goldfish the deck at that point
I doubt so. Proof for that is easy, I just have to read your feelings after your early goldfishing cessions.

[midnightAce]

I have some questions regarding how the deck operates.


1. Use Raven Familiars and Cavern Harpies to dig into the deck to find a Man'O-War and the Spike Feeder.
2. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Spike Feeder loop to get a large amount of life.
3. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Wall of Roots loop to get a large amount of Green mana.
4. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Spike Feeder loop to turn your creatures into big monsters.
5. Recur all your Force of Wills and Cabal Therapies with an Eternal Witness loop and pass the turn.
6. Attack on the next turn for the win.

So couple of points off the top of my head.

The deck does not win once Aluren's resolved and on the table, it has to wait at least one turn, and kill by charging across the red zone. Does that mean creatures such as Troll and Mongoose can potentially block the large guy? (Assuming it's not a flier.) Wouldn't that kind of push back the kill turn by 1 or 2?

Compare that to the original creatures such as Rishadan Cutpurse, what's the advantage of the Feeder/Harpy/Man-o-War/Wall engine? (My understanding is that without a Wall of Root, you can't make large creatures.)

A lot of the match ups seems favourable from recursive disruption and counter magic. How consistent does the deck find its lone E.Witness? I guess the Chord is good tutor here. Does Intuition sometimes is used to find the Witness as well?


Creature removal is also not a problem if you cast Cavern Harpy before the Raven Familiar.


I do not really understand. If I cast Harpy before Raven, I have to return a blue or black creature, no? Once the Raven is cast, opponent can still StP Raven in response to you casting Harpy, right? Unless you already have multiple Harpies and Ravens, then it is okay, no?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

[El_Tombo]

I'm with Slay on this one and don't really like this build (FoW ?), although it has some good elements like the chain to answer some annoying things
but IMO If you want to play a controllish deck with combo finish there are far better options out there

Look at Aluren in extended of early 2005 (where I played it to day 2 at GP Eindhoven and 2 times in top 8 at a PTQ) which was focussed on getting the combo through as early and consistent as possible
So why would you want to change that in Legacy where you can even make the deck a turn faster ???

Just like Slay I've been working on and tuning Aluren for 1,5 since end 2004 and the deck performs very nicely in the average legacy metagame and can combo on average on turn 4 (so it's on pace with solidarity and the aggro decks) but can combo on turn 3 if need be
this makes landstill, threshold, gobo ... matchups that can be won by a decent aluren player.

But then came Philly and a guy called Pikula came up with a deck that was good for that metagame and as splashdamage TOTALLY rapes combo decks like aluren in the arse. (pardon my french)
-> It rips apart your hand, manabase (which is one of the vulnarabilities of aluren) and then as icing on the cake puts a plague for beasts on your heinie (sure you have chain, but without enough land and/or cards .... )

After some testing with our group, the conclusion was that it would have been too great a risk a take Aluren to a 9 round (and 15 counting day 2) tourney like a GP where the risk of having to duke it out against Pikula more than 2 times was realistic. (even with 3 byes I still would have to play 6 rounds day 1)

Imagine my surprise to see a pro like Canali playing Aluren, immidiately giving the dude some more credit, thinking he had balls of steel and wishing him the best of luck to stay clear of Pikula decks ...(which apparantly he did since the top tables day 1 were mostly rift, gobo, threshold and only 6 Pikula's/Deadguy ale made day 2)

In retrospect ...
when a deck has only 1 truely bad matchup ...
why not play it ?
I think I would have had more fun and maybe even made day 2 ...
(providing I only met 1 or 2 Pikula decks)

The lesson learned once more ...
play the deck you like and know how to play it best instead of "taking the best deck for the metagame"

as a final note ...
didn't we already have a few threads on Aluren ?
Usually you guys are pretty strict about that

[Toad]

Does that mean creatures such as Troll and Mongoose can potentially block the large guy? (Assuming it's not a flier.) Wouldn't that kind of push back the kill turn by 1 or 2?
You usually win through Raven Familiars and Cavern Harpies, so Blockers are not a problem. Especially since you often have around 10 beaters on the board before passing the turn.


Compare that to the original creatures such as Rishadan Cutpurse, what's the advantage of the Feeder/Harpy/Man-o-War/Wall engine?
Rishadan Cutpurse is weak on its own. This is the same for Maggot Carrier and Auriok Champion or Soul Warden. OTOH, Wall of Roots can hold Werebear all game long, Man-O'War gives some tempo and can act as creature removal with Cabal Therapy, and Spike Feeder can gives a cute life buffer against Burn or Goblins. Overall, they are better utility in the deck.


How consistent does the deck find its lone E.Witness?
When going off, you have no problems finding the Eternal Witness.


Does Intuition sometimes is used to find the Witness as well?
This happens pretty often yes. You can Intuition for 2 Man'O-War and the Eternal Witness, or 2 Chain of Vapor, or 2 Cavern Harpies if you pitched one to FOW... It's versatile, It's a must counter against Control and can chump a Piledriver.


If I cast Harpy before Raven, I have to return a blue or black creature, no? Once the Raven is cast, opponent can still StP Raven in response to you casting Harpy, right? Unless you already have multiple Harpies and Ravens, then it is okay, no?
You play the Raven Familiar in response to the gattin' trigger. Basically, play Cavern Harpy, put the gattin' on the stack. In response, play Raven Familiar and Impulse your card. Then try to resolve the gattin' trigger. If opponent passes back, the Raven is safe into your hand. If opponent tries to StP, pay 1 life to return Harpy into your hand, and use it to save the Raven. In other words, opponent needs 1 more removal than you have Harpies and Man'Os in your hand to kill a single Raven. Which makes creature removal useless against Aluren.


So why would you want to change that in Legacy where you can even make the deck a turn faster.
Force of Will. In Extended, counterspells cost 2 mana. In Legacy, counterspells are free. This fundamentally changes the deal. Also, Red Elemental Blast is heavily played.

In retrospect, and this is what came out the discussions I had with Pierre and Wilfried after the tournament, Aluren was a strong choice for Lille. Your only nightmare matchup, B/W Suicide, was rampant but only in the bottom tables. The Control deck of choice here, RW Rift, is close from being a bye. Goblin decks were focusing on the mirror match and the Threshold matchup, leaving the Pyrostatic Pillars out. Threshold can be beaten with our last minute addition of the 8th Wall in the deck and a good understanding of the matchup. Making Top32 at a 15 rounds tournament is not something you can do with skills only. You need a good deck too, or at least a deck that is good enough that It allows you to beat your opponents.

[El_Tombo]

So why would you want to change that in Legacy where you can even make the deck a turn faster.
Force of Will. In Extended, counterspells cost 2 mana. In Legacy, counterspells are free. This fundamentally changes the deal. Also, Red Elemental Blast is heavily played.

In retrospect, and this is what came out the discussions I had with Pierre and Wilfried after the tournament, Aluren was a strong choice for Lille. Your only nightmare matchup, B/W Suicide, was rampant but only in the bottom tables. The Control deck of choice here, RW Rift, is close from being a bye. Goblin decks were focusing on the mirror match and the Threshold matchup, leaving the Pyrostatic Pillars out. Threshold can be beaten with our last minute addition of the 8th Wall in the deck and a good understanding of the matchup. Making Top32 at a 15 rounds tournament is not something you can do with skills only. You need a good deck too, or at least a deck that is good enough that It allows you to beat your opponents.
Huh ?
so just because of force of will you are going to play a build that is slower and tries to use force of will itself ?

counters are higly irrelevant for a deck with 4 cabal therapies and enough creatures to flash it back.

besides, did you try/consider Xantic Swarm in the side ?
"but that's a swords target"
err, you just said removal is mostly irrelevant so people playing white normally should side em out
besides, that's also a swords they can't use on one of the combo pieces

Aluren was indeed a good call IF YOU HAD 3 BYES because far less pro's than I had anticipated opted to play Deadguy Ale.
Also, as it turned out, Deadguy ale isn't that hot a deck if the number of threshold is increased

You Do need to specify the 3 bye thing because we both agree they were a lot of Deadguy ale at the lower tables and in the earlier rounds so that would have made it harder for someone with aluren to make it to day 2 if they had to play aluren for 9 rounds instead of 6.

Anyway,
I'm not too fond of your Aluren build with force of will but I'm glad you crazy french did well and you gave me a couple of ideas to change my build

c u in Hasselt in a month I guess for what will most likely be the biggest GP ever

[Toad]

counters are higly irrelevant for a deck with 4 cabal therapies and enough creatures to flash it back.
They are not irrelevant. You have to take them into account. Threshold runs Counterspell, Force of Will and Daze. And Meddling Mage for the white builds. That means you can never goldfish turn 3 or 4 over these, even with a Cabal Therapy. So you have to wait a bit and go into later game. That implies using Force of Will to deal with threats.


besides, did you try/consider Xantic Swarm in the side ?
Yeah, we tried It. The 4th Force of Will and Cabal Therapy are better since they are more versatile.


You Do need to specify the 3 bye thing
Wilfried didn't have 3 byes.


c u in Hasselt in a month I guess for what will most likely be the biggest GP ever
Nah you won't beat GP Paris ;)
I'll likely be judging in Hasselt.

[El_Tombo]

counters are higly irrelevant for a deck with 4 cabal therapies and enough creatures to flash it back.
They are not irrelevant. You have to take them into account. Threshold runs Counterspell, Force of Will and Daze. And Meddling Mage for the white builds. That means you can never goldfish turn 3 or 4 over these, even with a Cabal Therapy. So you have to wait a bit and go into later game. That implies using Force of Will to deal with threats.
got me there
;-)

but against decks like threshold and even more against landstill it's not needed to combo on turn 3 - 4

daze is far from a hard counter by the way and any decent player can play around that
so that leaves only counterspell and force to neutralize as true countering problems

and when they are tapped out
only force

so therapy + flashback can take of that

In all honesty,
I think meddling mage is far more anoying than any counter
so maybe against that your idea of force of will is not that bad
(I usually have to rely on boneshredder or deed to get rid of them)

anyway,
let's agree to disagree on a few choices for the deck (just like some builds of other decks differ depending on the approach)
and congrats again in proving that aluren can perform in legacy

PS
I hope us Belgians will not have the biggest GP ever but I fear it will be for the simple reason there will be side event prereleases of guildpact and because Ravnica block sealed is just WAY more fun than champions sealed

[Lukas Preuss]

Yep, you missed Cabal Therapy naming Brain Freeze

Well, that doesn't convince me very much... if you don't draw one of your three Therapies, you're pretty much screwed. Have you actually tested the Solidarity matchup? How are your win percentages on that?

I understand your point that Solidarity won't actually be dangerous to the deck, since it's not played that often... but I'm just curious on how your testing results on this matchup actually were.

[frogboy]

You can Intuition for Therapies and just crush your opponent's hand without much issue.

[Slay]

Could be yeah. Also, I didn't find your decklists in some forum here, so I don't know if you are playing builds with Man'O-Wars and Spike Feeder or builds with Wirewood Savage and Soul Warden likes. These builds are extremely different to pilot, so a year of experience with these is really nothing. They only have their core card in common, but play totally different.

I've been playing the kind that goldfishes twice as fast as yours with as much disruption. The kill condition doesn't matter.


Landstill's "unrestricted Ancestral Recall" is hot against first turn Goblin Lackey, first turn Aether Vial or first turn Nimble Mongoose. Landstill's "unrestricted Ancestral Recall" is also hot after the opponent dropped his turn 2 Lightning Rift. It's also awesome to have that on the board when your opponent is going to Cabal Therapy 3 times in a row.

And in EVERY SINGLE OTHER SITUATION, it's an Ancestral Recall. You can't discuss the worst possible situations to use a card.


But whatever, Aluren outdraws Landstill.

Aluren can outdraw Landstill? That's pretty difficult, seeing as how Aluren runs NO CARD ADVANTAGE SPELLS AT ALL.


Cabal Therapy is so much better than Counterspell in billions of matchups you know?

It does wonders against a Ringleader ripped off the top. Or, for that matter, a Sphere of Resistance, a Glowrider, a Rule of Law, an Arcane Laboratory, Pyrostatic Pillar, Pithing Needle, Engineered Plague, Meddling Mage, etc.


Are you really telling me you are planning to resolve a Wrath of God, a Moat or a Humility against Threshold's 4 Force of Will, 3 Counterspells, 3 Dazes?

When I have 4 Wraths, and 2-3 Moat/Humilities, and 8 Counterspells, yes.

Are you telling me that resolving a Chain of Vapor on Meddling Mage against Gro's counterwall is easier with your far more meager disruption package, draw engine, and threat base? Let me remind you that you have to find the Chain first.


Ah, and Wall of Blossoms is a board Control card that cantrips and has synergy with Cabal Therapy. Good luck doing something useful with Swords to Plowshares and Wrath of God against MWC, WR Rift, High Tide, Belcher, Ill-Gotten Storm, Confinement, Aluren and some others.

OMG Landstill has bad matchups against storm decks and cycling decks? YOU BLEW MY MIND!

It's a good thing those are a lot less prevalent than, say, aggro decks and aggro-control decks, which your deck topples over to like a drunk on a unicycle.


When playtesting the Aluren vs. Landstill matchup, nothing was more funnier to see Landstill with a hand full of powerful control elements like Wrath of God, Swords to Plowshares, Akroma's Vengeance and others when going off through Cabal Therapy.

When playtesting the Aluren vs. Goblins matchup, I found that I died about three turns faster than I could assemble the combo. Tell me how knowing the stack will solve that problem, mmkay?


I doubt so. Proof for that is easy, I just have to read your feelings after your early goldfishing cessions.

It's not rocket surgery. You choose the card that keeps you going off, like Chain, Manowar, Harpy, or Familiar. Unless you roll a Chord or a feeder, in which case you take those. There is absolutely no skill involved in going off at that point. It's not like you have to make any difficult decisions. It either helps you find the combo, is the combo, or isn't. The problem lies in that finding double 2-ofs requires you to search through pretty much your entire deck, which saps a significant total of life. I foudn that about half the time, I could continue the combo, and half the time I couldn't. That is seven life right there.

You still haven't answered me with your strategy for fighting against fast aggro decks that play burn spells.I'm interested to know why you don't get completely massacred by those decks, seeing as how they kill you about two turns faster than you kill them.
-Slay

[Toad]

And in EVERY SINGLE OTHER SITUATION, it's an Ancestral Recall. You can't discuss the worst possible situations to use a card.
Well last time I checked, every single top Legacy deck packed either 4 Aether Vial, or 4 Goblin Lackey, or 4 Lightning Rift, or 4 Nimble Mongoose. Standstill is a rather bad cards when all the best decks run 1cc or 2cc drops that completely negate your draw engine.


Aluren can outdraw Landstill? That's pretty difficult, seeing as how Aluren runs NO CARD ADVANTAGE SPELLS AT ALL.
Intuition? Cabal Therapy? Manual Raven Familiar recursion with Cavern Harpy or Man-O'War? You have never playtested the matchup right? Note that I'm not even mentionning the completely dead 4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Wrath of God, 1-2 Moat.


When I have 4 Wraths, and 2-3 Moat/Humilities, and 8 Counterspells, yes.
Since you need to cast Wrath of God before turn 6, Counterspell is irrelevant there. That means you are left with 4 Wrath of God, 2-3 Moat or Humility, 4 Force of Will against a deck with 4 Force of Will, 3 Daze, 3 Counterspell. 10 threats vs. 10 solutions. That could be considered as even, except that since Landstill's draw engine is absolute crap against Threshold and since Threshold as virtual access to twice more copies of its card than they run becasue of their cantrip density, that's not even a close match.


Are you telling me that resolving a Chain of Vapor on Meddling Mage against Gro's counterwall is easier with your far more meager disruption package, draw engine, and threat base? Let me remind you that you have to find the Chain first.
Well, if you don't see why resolving a 1cc instant is easier than resolving a 4cc sorcery, there is nothing I can do for you.


When playtesting the Aluren vs. Goblins matchup, I found that I died about three turns faster than I could assemble the combo. Tell me how knowing the stack will solve that problem, mmkay?
Knowing the stack will not probably help, but knowing how to play Aluren will. I got around 200 games of data in the Aluren vs. Goblins matchup, sideboarded or unsideboarded. Overall results are 55-45 in favour of Aluren.


You still haven't answered me with your strategy for fighting against fast aggro decks that play burn spells. I'm interested to know why you don't get completely massacred by those decks, seeing as how they kill you about two turns faster than you kill them.
We never tested this matchup. Pierre had to face a Zooish deck and 2-O'ed him. Wilfried had to face a GWR Aggro deck and 2-O'ed him too. That's the only data I can provide about these decks.

I actually find funny that someone who was only able to *goldfish* the deck for a couple of times keeps saying that a deck is shit when two pros Top32'ed at the biggest Legacy event ever after going 7-1-1 Day1 and playtesting with the deck for about 6 monthes.

[Slay]

Well last time I checked, every single top Legacy deck packed either 4 Aether Vial, or 4 Goblin Lackey, or 4 Lightning Rift, or 4 Nimble Mongoose. Standstill is a rather bad cards when all the best decks run 1cc or 2cc drops that completely negate your draw engine.

While that is a good point, it still stands that in every other situation it's an Ancestral Recall. A conditional Ancestral that happens to be bad in some key situations sure seems a hell of a lot better than having Wall of Blossoms be your primary draw engine.


Intuition? Cabal Therapy? Manual Raven Familiar recursion with Cavern Harpy or Man-O'War? You have never playtested the matchup right? Note that I'm not even mentionning the completely dead 4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Wrath of God, 1-2 Moat.

You seem to have this idea that I'm talking about the Aluren vs. Landstill matchup. I'm not. I'm talking about the strength of the two decks against the format. This arose when you mentioned Landstill as a control deck that didn't kill before turn 8. I said that Landstill wasn't a crappy control deck like this one.

Intuition isn't card advantage. Unless you find Cabal Therapies with it. It's a tutor.

Cabal Therapy is card advantage only if you hit a two-of in the other guy's hand, and only if they play things worth hitting while they are still in his hand.

Raven Familiar recursion with Harpy or Manowar only counts in a specifically literal sense. I don't consider paying 2UUB for a single card useful in any situation.


Since you need to cast Wrath of God before turn 6, Counterspell is irrelevant there. That means you are left with 4 Wrath of God, 2-3 Moat or Humility, 4 Force of Will against a deck with 4 Force of Will, 3 Daze, 3 Counterspell. 10 threats vs. 10 solutions. That could be considered as even, except that since Landstill's draw engine is absolute crap against Threshold and since Threshold as virtual access to twice more copies of its card than they run becasue of their cantrip density, that's not even a close match.

Gro's maximum goldfish is turn 6. I'm not sure why you think I "need" to resolve a Wrath before turn 6, when in most cases they kill after it. Also note that as Landstill, I have plenty of tools to stem their assault like F/I, Sword, manlands until I get the mana to resolve a bomb successfully.


Well, if you don't see why resolving a 1cc instant is easier than resolving a 4cc sorcery, there is nothing I can do for you.

Because I'll be able to find the 4cc Sorcery. While you're doing dumb crap like casting walls and praying you topdeck a Chain(or, I suppose, an Intuition, if you don't mind letting all your hopes rest on the resolution of two concurrent spells), I'll probably have a 4cc bomb in my hand and draw another within 3-4 turns. I'm not giving Gro's cantrip engine time to set up into a God hand, because I'm casting relevant spells. Note I also have stuff like Fact or Fiction that finds these spells and many other useful tools to help them resolve.


Knowing the stack will not probably help, but knowing how to play Aluren will. I got around 200 games of data in the Aluren vs. Goblins matchup, sideboarded or unsideboarded. Overall results are 55-45 in favour of Aluren.

Tell me what your gameplan against a resolved Piledriver is, besides throw walls in front of it and hope you topdeck the combo. Because that sure as hell was mine. And it failed quite magnificently, I can assure you.


We never tested this matchup. Pierre had to face a Zooish deck and 2-O'ed him. Wilfried had to face a GWR Aggro deck and 2-O'ed him too. That's the only data I can provide about these decks.

They're better players than 99.99% of the magic community. That number isn't for hyperbole. I tested the matchup, it was just as horrible for Aluren as the Goblins matchup was. And without three byes, people will be running into that matchup a lot more frequently.


I actually find funny that someone who was only able to *goldfish* the deck for a couple of times keeps saying that a deck is shit when two pros Top32'ed at the biggest Legacy event ever after going 7-1-1 Day1 and playtesting with the deck for about 6 monthes.

That is irrelevent, and total worthless bullshit for reasons I have already stated.

I suppose none of my criticisms of this deck are going to matter to you, since you clearly have some kind of Super Secret ZOMG Tech® that somehow adds 25% to every matchup you play. Maybe some day when I've played the same damn obsolete combo deck for three more years I too will be entitled to recieve the Super Secret ZOMG Tech® and instantly turn any crappy deck into one that makes it into the money at a large event!

...Or maybe Canali just rode his playskill into the T32, and Aluren actually sucks.
-Slay

[Toad]

...Or maybe Canali just rode his playskill into the T32, and Aluren actually sucks.
All the players who took Aluren at the GP made Top32. 2 out of 2. In a 900 players tournament. I won 4 tournaments with Aluren when preparing for the GP, 2 of them being undefeated in games and facing decks you claim to be awful matchups, such as R/G beats or Three Deuce.

So calling a deck "obsolete" and "crap" is rather pointless. You can't deny facts. Maybe the playskills the deck requires are far above your skills. Aluren is not to be put in the hand of every player. I saw billions of players claiming that Aluren was crap during the last Extended season because they had terrible results with the deck. In that situation, the problem is not always the deck.

If you are not able to post anything else but bad flames and arguments showing you don't understand how the deck works, please refrain yourself from posting here.

[Peter_Rotten]

I have never respected Aluren, couldn't tell you the last time I lost to it, and wouldn't play it if you paid me. But you can't argue with the results of the GP. The archetype needed a facelift; Toad and associates gave it one and the deck performed well. It deserves to be discussed in an intelligent and respectful manner.

Slay, your remarks are more attacks than worthwile discussion. Quit the flaming or we'll issue warnings.

[Lego]

I would argue that the best deck in the format right now is one of the Thresh variants. If you look at the decklist on paper, it looks like total crap. Look at Landstill, and it's a bunch of slow control elements that don't seem like they could beat anything. I'm not even going to go into MWC, or decks like Fish. So if we assume that "Looking Really Bad On Paper" = "Really Good Deck" then this right here is the best deck I've ever seen.

[cupajoe]

Here's just a general comment, because I have no idea if the deck is good or not (although I do like the card Aluren, and I'm glad people are playing with it)

Don't underestimate the power of surprise.....If your opponent doesn't know what you're doing, you gain a big advantage, perhaps enough of an advantage to overcome whatever the deck's shortcomings might be

So for a pro (or, any good player, really) to take an "inferior" but still pretty good deck to a large tourney, where many players will have never seen the deck, or only have vague knowledge of it, is a pretty good strategy....Aluren at GP: Lille is probably a good example of this happening....

You'll win games because your opponent may disenchant the wrong thing, or when they duress, they'll pull out the wrong card, etc.....Or they'll attack without even reading what your creature is (I know it's hard to believe, but I've seen otherwise competent players do this, because they start assuming)

A lot of times, I get wins when my opponent doesn't read my cards, and they are surprised at what the cards did....

You'll almost never see that happen with Goblins....Everyone knows how to play against it because it's so familiar.....Hell, they can probably tell what you're casting just by what mana you tap...

So perhaps if you have a pretty good deck, but has obvious weaknesses that can't be cured (Aluren is a three-card combo seems to be a pretty good argument against it), it might behoove you not to bring it up on message boards :)

I have a deck that falls into this category, and there is no way I would ever post it on a message board for people to savage it....I'm going to try it out at a tourney next month, and we'll see what happens

[Jero]

Even after reading your arguments on the matter, both here and on TMD, I still feel uneasy about passing the turn after going off. Although there don't appear to be many situations where the extra turn or the lack of a combo kill matter, it still feels like taking an unnecessary risk. Maybe it just seems that way because of the contrast with previous versions of the deck or other combo decks, but still...

So after (only) about an hour of test games, I decided to make some minimal changes to incorporate a full-fledged combo kill - without cluttering the list with jank, because, as you stated:


The deck wants to focus on useful cards, and cut all the fancy stuff for that.

I do believe that the main advantage this deck has over the faster versions of last season's Extended is the consistency that comes from dropping situational combo elements like Maggot Carrier, Rishadan Cutpurse, Cloud of Faeries or Stroke of Genius. However, it should be noted that those cards typically weren't played maindeck anyway. To prevent dead draws and increase consistency, I usually played at least two Living Wishes, often more, and a toolbox board of combo pieces (Maggot Carrier, Raven Familiar, Auriok Champion,...) , utility creatures (e.g. Eternal Witness), a mana fixer (basic land / City of Brass) and some tech (e.g. Xantid Swarm).

Granted, it’s a terrible idea to play toolbox in Legacy (slow, unreliable because of FoW, and eats up valuable sideboard space) but with just one or two spots in both maindeck and sideboard, I think the benefits outweigh the sacrifices.


No Living Wish because it's far too slow for Legacy. On turn 2 you want to stop a Nimble Mongoose or a Goblin Lackey.

Quoted for truth, but then again, why would you want to cast Living Wish on turn two? As you mentioned:


Aluren is by nature a slow Combo deck.

As such, Living Wish does fill a number of holes in the deck’s game plan:

- It can fetch back a StP’ed combo piece.
- It can tutor for a missing combo piece.
- When going off, it can get a game-winning card. This eliminates the risk of having to pass the turn and win through the red zone. It also saves you some time, which shouldn’t be relevant, but might be. Plus, it wins you style points – although I’d hate to think that this is in fact the most important reason for bringing this up (I’ll have to discuss this on my next Johnnies Anonymous meeting).

Long story short, I plan on making the following adjustments:

MD: -1 Raven Familiar
MD: -1 Chain of Vapor / Chord of Calling
MD: +2 Living Wish

SB: -3 Eladamri’s Vineyard (In what matchup do you side these in?)
SB: +1 Maggot Carrier
SB: +1 Raven Familiar
SB: +1 Xantid Swarm / Stern Proctor / Pernicious Deed

This is all pretty obvious, so I'm sure you have considered and dismissed it, but it makes the deck play a lot smoother for me, so I'm intent on testing it in this configuration.

PS: Congrats on the succesful make-over. God knows the deck needed one...

[Lego]

How did you arrive at the current manabase? Seems pretty vulnerable to Wasteland. And what do you do if you get something like Forest, fetch land in your opening hand, and you need Green, Blue, and Black mana. In testing, the manabase has created a lot of mulligans, and while I haven't tested it against any decks with wastelands, doesn't seem fun.

I also wanted to respond to Slay and say that I've been comboing out pretty regularly on turns 4 and 5 with this deck. I don't know if that's just luck, but it seems pretty consistant. I've never lose once I resolved Aluren with a Raven Familiar in hand.

I do like the idea of two Living Wish maindeck. You know, in case they topdeck Obliterate ;)

[frogboy]

SB: -3 Eladamri’s Vineyard (In what matchup do you side these in?)



How did you arrive at the current manabase? Seems pretty vulnerable to Wasteland.


You know, in case they topdeck Obliterate ;)

Obliterate doesn't destory Aluren.

[SpencerForHire]

My big issue is also with the manabase. I lose to wasteland and that makes me sad. I've played this deck versus Goblins and Sligh and would win every game if not for an early wasteland.

[frogboy]

Eladamri's Vineyard is pretty good against Wasteland.

[bigbear102]

I don't really understand your logic in playing Spike Feeder as a lone win condition. It seems as though playing an instant speed win, if only one, would far increase your chances of beating Goblins and Solidarity/any other combo. Noone can argue the fact that Goblins can win in one turn, especially with Aluren on the table. They need one ringleader, then topdeck into one of several cards to do A LOT of damage, I have played this matchup several times, and know this happens a lot.

I would also like to say that Rishadan Cutpurse is not a card to scoff at. Seeing as this build would have a lot of problems with MD hate, 1 Cutpurse can do wonders. Waiting a turn to win the game is much safer when your opponent has 0 permanents in play. I played a version with Cutpurse and loved it, the card pulls you out of a lot of situations very easily, with Harpy you clear their board for 6-10 life on average, Goblins is one of the only matchups where this doesn't regularly happen.

I would also like to mention that touting the skill of two individual players does not help improve the format or deck at all. Props to them for doing well, but now if we want to make the deck better, WE have to do well with it. I know there is a lot of skill involved in the deck, and I believe I have some of what is necessary, but know that more practice is needed. So instead of telling people 'the deck doesn't work cuz ur bad' why don't we figure out why it isn't working for that person, because I can guarantee that for every 1 person saying it isn't working, there are 3-4 more agreeing.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Goblins cannot deal an arbitrarily large amount of damage in one turn (through Force of Will recursion).

If you manage to assemble the combo against Solidarity, you can play (and flashback) as many Therapies as you have black mana, and then they have to get through ~20 copies of Force of Will.

The only arguement you can make for replacing Spike Feeder with a different kill mechanism would be that the alternate kill is a better topdeck before you combo than Spike Feeder is. The Feeder kill itself seems pretty airtight.



Edited By Obfuscate Freely on 1135373847

[Teddy]

Personally, I'm inclined to think that the variant combo is silly. Aluren in play should win you the game on that turn, barring an Engineered Plague. Trying to win through creatures and combat damage hasn't even lowered the amount of slots dedicated to the combo (the standard Maggot Carrier and Auriok Champion actually opens up slots, which I would fill with Living Wish.) Combat damage is a shaky manner of winning in the first place, and cutting off your ability to Wish for Stern Proctor (a frequent answer to Plague for beasts) feels incredibly wrong.

The Walls and Forces seem perfectly legitimate, but I just don't see the wisdom in changing the combo.

[Obfuscate Freely]

What's hard to see? Spike Feeder, Wall of Roots, and Man-o-war are all fairly useful before you manage to assemble the combo. Can you provide an actual reason that the Feeder kill is worse than the Maggot Carrier kill?

Living Wish is a separate debate. The guys who made the deck decided through testing that Wish's benefits aren't worth its drawbacks. The deck already has several answers to things like Plague, between Therapy, Force, and Chain. I won't argue that cutting Wish is correct, but I wouldn't argue against their testing without doing some of my own.

[Slay]

Mainly the instant-speed of it. If you're playing against Solidarity, you give them the opportunity to respond to a large storm count with Brainfreeze, and there's nothign you can do about it because you don't have recurring Force of Will(unless you play Cloud of Faeries). Even if you Therapy it away, all they have to do is go off enough to find one and it's utterly game over for you. With na instant speed kill, they have to find a Brainfreeze and a Cunning Wish, or you win, and Cunning Wish can be Force of Willed.

I personally would argue that Brainfreeze is a better kill, just because it's essentially Raven Familiar #5 if you don't draw a Familiar.
-Slay

[Lego]

Obliterate doesn't destory Aluren.
It was a joke. I was just saying that it always makes more sense *not* to pass the turn. Helps to be instant speed, too.

[Hutch8729]

hey slay can we get a list of your deck to compare with. I agree that the speed build is better and that is what i have played since last extended season and i am now looking to convert this deck. Thx :)

Please keep this kind of thing confined to Private Messages. This is considered spam. - Zilla

[gnurbel2000]

Hallo
Today i gave this version of Aluren a try to go through 2 wonderul hours of goldfishing with me. After some trouble at the beginning with too many hands that looked like combo for casual player with kills around turn 8-10, I got better in playing it and down to protected combos between turn 4-6 which was quite impressive.
I think that some people who've been sceptical about this build, should give it a try. Even the point which was mentioned that Aluren should have a "win now" combo finish, should try to stop three 1002/1001 and up to four 1001/1002 flying and five 1002/1002 critters with no nonland permanent in play, nothing except of lands in your hand and 3 Force of Wills plus 3 blue pitchtargets and a therapy in your opponents hand.
Don't forget the near infinite life.

I think the mainboard needs an additional Spike Force, because it can help you against fast aggrodecks with burn or a pure burn deck, because now you can tutor for Spike Force with Intuition without paying too much life for cavern harpies ability.

[Bane of the Living]

How is this deck better than Fruity Pebbles or Bomberman?

You still need a 4cc card and other combo pieces that are crap without it, but the mana base in Pebbles and Bomberman both are way more solid, and have better combo protection via duress, therapy, burn, stp, ect.

[fear_these]

If you are going to use Aluren in 1.5 it should look like the old Extended version with some new cards. Like Imperial Recruiter from P3K, he is a 2R 1/1 creature that says "When Imperial Recruiter comes into play, search your library for a creature with power 2 or less, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library." You can cut some of your living wishes and play 3 to 4 of these. Another good card is Lim-Dul's Vault, you can pretty much look at 20 cards atleast with only losing 3 life and then stack your deck for 5 turns. My friend played Aluren at GP:Philly and he went x-2 and lost on tiebreakers for day 2 but then we found out about these cards and made Aluren nuts.

4 Aluren
2 Living Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Intuition
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Lotus Pedal

3 Cavern Harpy
1 Auriok Champion
3 Imperial Recruiter
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Blossems
3 Raven Familiar
1 Cloud of Faries

4 Poluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Underground Sea
4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
3 Naturalize
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Maggot Carrier
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Stern Proctor
1 Auriok Champion
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Bone Shredder
1 Raven Familiar
1 Eternal Witness


Another form of Aluren I was building for fun in Extended was one that played Myr Retriver, Junkdiver, and Eternal Witness with Goblin Bombardment. Sort of like the Fruity Peebles build and you play Academy Rector. Just a fun deck but the one above is sick. If we had that build for Philly we would of made Day 2 easy.

[Lego]

I kind of like the Imperial Recruiter idea. Aluren + Recruiter: GG, which is nice.

[fear_these]

SAd thing is we didn't find out about him until the end of Day 1, sadness. Oh well we have the list and hopefully I will be playing it for the Duel4Duals at GP:richmond.

[Skullclamping]

i also thought on recruiter some days ago, and I searched it in shops, but the thing is that it is really hard to find 4 of them

[fear_these]

Well considering they are out of Portal Three Kingdoms and Star City Games sells them at $20 a piece and only have 1, you more then likely won't find them.

[Lego]

That's the problem with all the good cards from the Portal sets. We need to see some reprints, just of the good ones.

[Skullclamping]

yes, like the starter one's, but we have the same problems with other cards, so I think they won't reprint it...
just try to play without it in paper, but it's great to internet playing

[Toad]

If you are going to use Aluren in 1.5 it should look like the old Extended version with some new cards.
What most of the people here don't seem to realize is that the Aluren build my friends ran at GP Lille *is* the old Extended build. The old Extended from before 2002. Back then, Maggot Carrier was Extended legal. Soul Warden was Extended legal. Cloud of Faeries was Extended legal. But for some reason, these Aluren builds were running Spike Feeder and Man'O-Wars. There is a good reason for that: these builds are just better. No dead card. This is key. You don't want to clog up your hand with crap cards like Maggot Carrier or Soul Warden. Spike Feeder kills a Piledriver and still gives you 4 life. Man'O-War gives tempo and can act as creature removal with Cabal Therapy. It also pitches to FOW if needed. What do Auriok Champion do until you get Aluren on the board? It stays in your hand until you draw Brainstorm. Crap.

Imperial Recruiter is bad. It's Red, so you can't hardcast It.

Living Wish got tested and cut. It's completely out of Legacy's tempo, there is not a single matchup where you have time to cast It properly. And It gives you a terrible sideboard.

[bigredmeanie]

@Toad
I also do not like Living Wish. I've never been a fan of not having a real sideboard.
As far as Imperial Recruiter is concerned he's good, and can fetch all the creatures in the deck. He allowes you to combo off with much less life requirement. It only takes a very small splash to be able to cast him, and then you get to run a nonattack phase win condition in Ghittu Slinger.

[lillelassie]

Hi Toad..

I'm really falling in love with the deck. Feel like I'm finally playing true magic when I pilot this deck. There are som many interactions between the cards, as you have already said. You get the feeling that you are playing a deck, that just happens to have a combo in it. Not like any tensrils-deck, that HAS to win in one turn, and where half of the cards are dead.

Aluren and salvagers-combo are the kind of combo-decks I like, because almost all of their cards interact outside the combo.

I'm interesting in a little explanation regarding the sideboard Toad. How do you sideboard in the games you have tested? and what are the crucial points in every matchup? these are things that all could really help me with deck

[Tao]

I think it is time to ping this thread. With Dissension this deck got 2 new cards, that really help the deck:

Coiling Oracle
UG, Creature - Snake Elf Druid 1/1
When Coiling Oracle comes into play, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it into play. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.

Court Hussar
2U, Creature - Vedalken Knight 1/3
Vigilance
When Court Hussar comes into play, look at the top three cards of your library, then put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
When Court Hussar comes into play, sacrifice it unless {W} was spent to play it.

Both are really nice without Aluren and combo with Cavern Harpy. Coiling Oracle can help accelerating Mana. Furthermore it chumps and cantrips towards Aluren.

The Ghitu Slinger is in the deck, because it kills Wretches, Meddling Mages and gives the opportunity for an instant kill, which will improve the Solidarity matchup. I think it is a nice addition but you can also replace it with an additional Wall of Blossoms / Tinder Wall. I would like to play both of them as a 4-of, but can't find any more room for it.

I think Tinder Wall is better than Wall of Roots. Both allow to get infinite Mana with other Combo pieces, but Tinder Wall is a nice 1-drop and makes Turn2-Kills possible. It also blocks Lackey. Only in a strong Gro Meta (like GP Lille was) I would stick to Wall of Roots.

This is the list I am testing online right now, and I plan to take it to our weekly tourney this friday.

// Lands
1 [R] Savannah
4 [MM] Forest (4)
3 [A] Bayou
4 [B] Tropical Island
1 [R] Taiga
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
3 [IA] Tinder Wall
3 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
4 [DIS] Coiling Oracle
4 [UL] Raven Familiar
2 [DIS] Court Hussar
2 [VI] Man-o'-War
2 [FD] Eternal Witness
2 [SH] Spike Feeder
3 [PS] Cavern Harpy
1 [UL] Ghitu Slinger

// Spells
3 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
2 [] Intuition
1 [] Chain of Vapor
2 [AL] Force of Will
4 [TE] Aluren

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 [7E] Duress
SB: 3 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 4 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [AP] Pernicious Deed

[bigredmeanie]

Have you discounted Imperial Recruiter? Or do you not know of it's existance? It's an instant 2 card win, assuming they can't disrupt you. Speaking of which, that's the biggest problem I had with testing. If your opponent can do anything they will most likely be able to disrupt you. For that reason I took to running Xantid Swarm. It means I can go off unmollested after it attacks, and if they have an answer for it, that's 1 less answer they have for when I try and combo.

Coiling Oracle does add a lot to the deck, though I'm not sure Court Husser is necessary at all.

[Anusien]

Have you discounted Imperial Recruiter? Or do you not know of it's existance? It's an instant 2 card win, assuming they can't disrupt you.
He already answered this.

As for disruption, keep in mind that if you combo off you can get infinite Force of Wills, so getting disrupted isn't a problem. The whole deck is in a control shell, with a lot of disruption so you should be able to bide your time until you're covered.

And Court Hussar is bad because the stacking tricks don't work. Coiling Oracle is harder to cast and less durable than Wall of Roots or Wall of Blossoms. No thank you.

[bigredmeanie]

He already answered this.

As for disruption, keep in mind that if you combo off you can get infinite Force of Wills, so getting disrupted isn't a problem. The whole deck is in a control shell, with a lot of disruption so you should be able to bide your time until you're covered.

And Court Hussar is bad because the stacking tricks don't work. Coiling Oracle is harder to cast and less durable than Wall of Roots or Wall of Blossoms. No thank you.


You don't seem to understand what I'm trying to say. If your opponent can do something once you cast Aluren, you won't be able to go infinite, therefore you won't have 'infinite' FoWs, most likely resulting in a game loss.

As for Coiling Oracle, it's going to be better than at least Wall of Blossoms, in that it costs the same, is blue, and can accelerate you. Not to mention it can be bounced with Harpy.

@ Imperial recruiter. Boo freaking who it's red, it's easy to cast, it's a pretty easy splash, and is GG as soon as you cast Aluren. If your going to play combo, than play combo and win in the same turn. It's also not dead, because it finds pieces directly instead of using Raven familiar, which is crap, to try and draw your way into what you need.

Not playing Recruiter is like saying you don't need Demonic Tutor because Impulse is better.

[worsel]

Is Toad still around? I'd sure like to hear what he and his buddies have been doing with the deck since we last heard from him on Jan 21.

Toad? Yoo-hoo... Mr.Toad?

The problem with Coiling Oracle is that it is only a 1/1, where Wall of Blossoms is a beefy 0/4. Both draw you a card, therefore card advantage is the same. Coiling Oracle only gives you mana acceleration if you have already made your land drop for the turn. If you missed your land drop that turn, then it does not give you anything more than Wall of Blossoms does. Coiling Oracle does, however, give you more card advantage when a Carven Harpy can bounce it to your hand. However, the deck slot that we are talking about was originally intended to be a wall to slow down your opponent's attacking, giving you time to stabilize. The Oracle will only block once, making it inferior at the intended job of this slot. I believe the Wall of Blossoms is still the better choice. I wonder what Toad would say?

[Nightmare]

Is Toad still around? I'd sure like to hear what he and his buddies have been doing with the deck since we last heard from him on Jan 21.

Toad? Yoo-hoo... Mr.Toad?
TheManaDrain (www.themanadrain.com) He's over there.

[Tao]

So Mr.Toad is the David Gearhart of Aluren?

[Lukas Preuss]

Nope. He only knows some people (Gabriel Nassif and some other french pro, I think) that do well with the deck. He didn't put up any impressive results with the deck (maybe, because he was judging at GP Lille instead of playing Alluren), yet. David Gearhart actually T8ed (and won) some tournaments with his creation.

He says he playtested alot with these pros before the Grand Prix, though. I'm not sure on how good this deck is, because two T32 appearances at a single event don't prove much. Maybe its just a mediocre combo deck that got piloted by two very good players (much likely)... I mean, hey, 2-Land Belcher and Trix made day two at Lille and we know that those are mediocre combo decks.

[Tosh]

Imperial Aluren.dec

// Mana Sources 22
2 Forest
2 Island
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Swamp
4 Chrome Mox
// Aluren & Creatures
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Ghitu Slinger
3 Spike Feeder
3 Man-o'-War
4 Cavern Harpy
3 Raven Familiar
4 Aluren

// Support Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will

// Sideboard:
SB: 4 Monk Realist
SB: 4 Uktabi Orangutan
SB: 4 Pyroclasm
SB: 3 Duress
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This deck is pretty much self explanitory. Use Cavern Harpy to have a recurring Man-o'-War to return a Ghitu Slinger to deal infinite damage. Imperial Recruiter makes the deck much more consistant as you only need him if you have an Aluren out:
Play Recruiter -> Fetch Man-o'-War -> Man-o'-War replay Recruiter (Play Man-o'-War -> Bounce Recruiter -> Play Recruiter) -> Fetch Cavern Harpy -> Play Cavern Harpy -> Return Man-o'-War -> Man-o'-War replay Recruiter -> Fetch Sparkmage Apprentice ===> Win

If you have any questions just post and I'll answer. I have yet to test it against any tier 1-2 decks but as soon as I do, I'll post results.

This deck is influenced by Imperial Aluren, but the thread was closed.
Sparkmage Apprentice and Auriok Champion were in there because I had them, but for the purposes of being just a decklist I'll post optimal.

[Benie Bederios]

First of all change the name, you cant name a deck like that.

Second, I prefer playing with Spike Weaver and without wishes. That way you have:

1. No dead cards before comboing off.

2. Second more Disruption, also in the form of blockers.

3. More Tutor thanks to Intuition.

The loop uses Wall of Blossoms/Raven Familiar bouncing with Man-o'-War/Raven Familar, until you find Spike Weaver, by removing counters and bouncing, you will get infinite life. Than with searching for Wall of Roots you get infinite mana and infinite +1/+1 counters. Use Eternal Witness to get enough Force of Wills to survive the next turn than attack with some 1000/1000 creatures for the win.

[bigredmeanie]

A fire Imp needs to be in your board. Also Ghitu Slinger is better than Sparkmage because it deals 2, which is significant in case you need to win at low life without Feeder.

Feeder is better than champion.

I also really like Lim duls Vault as a Tutor because it can find Aluren or Recruiter, or both.

[Tosh]

#1 I fixed It up, I posted the optimal IMO decklist for Imperial Aluren.
#2 I came up with the name AIDS because my first version didn't use Ghitu Slinger or Sparkmage, it just used Man-o'-War and Ravenous/Chittering Rats to control the board (destroying "immune system") and useing the little creatures to slowly but surely kill them. Then my friend was like: "What does AIDS stand for in your deck, Aluren Is Da Shit?" And he forced me to post that...
#3 I'm sure you mean Spike Feeder, not Spike Weaver...
#4 Why use fire Imp when I can just use Ghitu Slinger?

[Benie Bederios]

Thanks for changing the name.

Didn't you forget the Wall of Roots? You need him to get infinite mana. And about Wall of Blossoms, he is quite nice in there too.

How is the ***** matchup( wich is probably the toughest.) Can you win it, can you resolve a Aluren, or do you go beatdown, how do you board against them.

You only need 1 Feeder.

Did you think of Chord of Calling. Its is a great tutor as 1 off and is most of the time for free.

Where is Eternal Witness, that card is broken in the deck, as it can return Force of Will on the turn you went off, to stop all spells, and it can return Aluren if it is killed/countered/discarded.

Intuition is an nice tutor in the deck, especially with Witness.

How good is Chrome Mox, I used to use City of Traitors, but rarely needed it.

EDIT: removed the decklist, it was the wrong.

[Peter_Rotten]

Although some of the information here is dated, we do, in fact, have an Aluren thread!

You still don't know how to use the search function. - Zilla
Not to mention the thread was already in the LMF. ~Nightmare

[IndyTerminator]

Okay, I've been playtesting this deck for the past month or so against people at the local shop. I've played about 10 - 15 games preboard against Solidarity and about 5 games against a Train Wreck based deck. I was surprised by the results against Solidarity. They were very good. I won about 60 - 65% of the games. The soldarity list was based off of Deep6er's red splash list. I figured at the before we played that he would have a clear advantage and he very might have. He said he misplayed a few games which I will count as losses. That would bring the match-up to around 50% preboard. It seemed like I was in the games because I was able to take key cards with therapy and was able to use Force to counter key spells (Meditate mainly).

I have been having trouble with Train Wreck coupled with Extirpate preboard. I've found it very hard to win against this type of deck when you have key combo pieces removed such as Harpy and/or Aluren. Without those cards we are just a bad beatdown deck which is something these decks specialize in. I've been thinking about sideboarding Ground Seal if I start to see Extirpates flooding the field. I'm not particularly worried about it by itself as it is weak, but coupled with massive amounts of discard it can be devastating. I still feel that this deck is a strong choice. I'm planning to test Threshold and TES match-ups next. I'll let you know what I find out.

Note: I am using Alix Hatfield's list with -1 Wooded Foothills, +1 Eternal Witness.

[Nightmare]

Okay, I've been playtesting this deck for the past month or so against people at the local shop. I've played about 10 - 15 games preboard against Solidarity and about 5 games against a Train Wreck based deck. I was surprised by the results against Solidarity. They were very good. I won about 60 - 65% of the games. The soldarity list was based off of Deep6er's red splash list. I figured at the before we played that he would have a clear advantage and he very might have. He said he misplayed a few games which I will count as losses. That would bring the match-up to around 50% preboard. It seemed like I was in the games because I was able to take key cards with therapy and was able to use Force to counter key spells (Meditate mainly).

I have been having trouble with Train Wreck coupled with Extirpate preboard. I've found it very hard to win against this type of deck when you have key combo pieces removed such as Harpy and/or Aluren. Without those cards we are just a bad beatdown deck which is something these decks specialize in. I've been thinking about sideboarding Ground Seal if I start to see Extirpates flooding the field. I'm not particularly worried about it by itself as it is weak, but coupled with massive amounts of discard it can be devastating. I still feel that this deck is a strong choice. I'm planning to test Threshold and TES match-ups next. I'll let you know what I find out.

Note: I am using Alix Hatfield's list with -1 Wooded Foothills, +1 Eternal Witness.Wouldn't Chalice of the Void be better than Ground Seal? It stops them from utilizing Duress , Dark Ritual,and Cabal Therapy, as well as Extirpate. I dunno, Ground Seal seems incredibly narrow.

[IndyTerminator]

That's very true. I completely forgot about Chalice. That would be much better as it is more versatile than Ground Seal. When I thought of Seal I was concentrating merely on Extirpate but its important in this deck that cards be versatile. I'll test out Chalice but I'm figuring that it will be pretty good.

[Vetinari]

But Chalice also stops your CoV and Brainstorm and can therefore severely limit your potential to go off.

[georgjorge]

I'm playing a version a bit similar to that of fear_these on page three (one Man-o-War, two Harpies, three Recruiters, Vaults instead of Intuitions), although I play more cantrips (Opts and Impulses). Btw, I think his version forgot the Man-o-War, and Wish IS too slow.

However, I'm curious on Birds vs. Tinder Wall. Wall is obviously better than Goblins, and sometimes allows for second-turn-kills. On the other hand, Birds allows for a second-turn Raven or Intuition (if you play them) while still being able to play Aluren third turn. Anyone been testing them both ?

As for the endless win condition debate: one Spike Feeder, nothing more.

I also wanted to debate City of Traitors (I'm running three right now). Coupled with Tinder Walls or Birds, they allow very consistent third turn kills, which helps a lot against Goblins, Burn and various Combo decks. They do make you a bit more vulnerable to Wasteland, though.

Also, Dark Confidant in the sideboard. This deck actually plays cards a bit too expensive for Confidant, but it really needs some permanent card advantage against Aggro-Control and Control, I think. The other alternative for me is Sylvan Library, but you can't use that very often...

Another sideboard card which should be included in every deck running Recruiters is Harmonic Sliver. It can't be cast pre-Aluren, but when you got Aluren down, it only needs one Recruiter to solve the problems posed by Chalice for two, Engineered Plague (Beasts), Arcane Lab, Trinisphere, and so on. The main problem for this deck, however, seems to be Mage. Boneshredder is decent to fetch with Recruiter, but probably too slow. I tried Masticore as both a threat and a way to remove Mage, but in the end, Deed is probably the best answer, with the problem being that you can't remove many cards from a Combo deck for sideboard cards if you still want to have a good chance of going off...

[Peter_Rotten]

A quick note that a Toadish list, played by FriendlyPhil, just won some dual lands in Newark, NY this past weekend. I'm warming up to this deck - and it only took about two years.

Once Aluren hits, you have insane options. I watched one player this past Saturday lose a Goblins match that he had about 2 or 3 different ways to win. One different choice and he would have simply had X life and been able to swing for the win next turn.

[BreathWeapon]

One of the cards that should be reconsidered here is Living Wish, back when Aluren was constructed, it wasn't concerned with Storm combo, but now Living Wish for The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale seems to be Green's MD line of defense against Empty the Warrens, and the deck is also a great platform for Chalice of the Void at one out of the SB.

[IndyTerminator]

I've been playtesting Aluren for the past few months and I've got to say that I've been impressed by it. Its a deck that requires patience, insight, and skill. I'm going to be taking it to Columbus and hopefully I'll be able to do the deck justice.

I did not see anything in Futuresight that helps Aluren. Pact of Negation seems pretty weak in Aluren because the deck plays so much control the first 3 - 4 turns. I did not see any strong hate cards in Futuresight for the deck either.

I honestly don't see the reason of gutting the maindeck and sideboard to add Living Wish because of the fear of Warrens. I feel it is unwarranted and rash to try and make this change. For one thing, Living Wish is really bad in the Toad build of this deck as it is a dead card going off. I want to see as few dead cards as possible. Plus, I feel that Intuition is enough tutor power in the deck. 1 Intuition will typically get all the pieces you need to go off. If you need more than one tutor then you probably shouldn't have kept that hand. I've been fiddling with the sideboard and I think adding Chalice of the Void is a fair better option than Living Wish. It helps against a lot of match-ups and isn't as narrow as Living Wish.

I now have as my sideboard:
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Loaming Shaman
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Disrupt
2 Hydroblast
2 Blue Elemental Blast

Also, I've been playing around with the last spot in the maindeck. I've been changing it around from Eternal Witness #2, Wooded Foothills, and Chord of Calling. I really like the Witness, but I may test out adding in the fourth Cabal Therapy from the side to the main.

[BreathWeapon]

Aluren isn't a deck that has a lot of SBing options, considering the number of combo pieces it needs to assemble, so a Living Wish board isn't that significant. I prefer it over the Chord of Calling and a Man o' War; just being able to put a Tabernacle or a Maze on the board is enough to irritate Goblins, and it can be used to tutor for combo pieces or an Imperial Recruiter after an Aluren is on the board.

How is Living Wish dead in mid combo?

[Vetinari]

How is Living Wish dead in mid combo?
1) You often don't have any mana left when going off.

2) It breaks instant-speed (after Aluren resolves) virtue off the combo.

[BreathWeapon]

Right, but the loop can end in infinite mana, and Living Wish is more of means of using multiple Imperial Recruiters with out adding the to the MD, as well as answer to Empty the Warrens, removal and allowing the deck to turn into aggro-control if it needs to.

Most people just said it had poor tempo, but I don't think those people were using an Imperial Recruiter in the board.

Aluren + Living Wish is a two card combo, that's a lot to think about.

[IndyTerminator]

But typically you are going to be laying Aluren with very little mana left over. If Living Wish was an instant it would see play but a lot of the time I go off on my opponents turn which limits the number of options they are going to have against the combo.

[Vetinari]

If you end up with "infinite" mana, you have effectively already won, making LW the very definition of win more.

LW->IR chain is rather pointless as it does not solve the main problem of IR, namely it being uncastable without Aluren. In other words, why not just run IR main, even though it still sucks, it is at least better mid-combo.

Those tricks with lands are cute, but ultimately too slow and cumbersome. Why not just win instead?

[BreathWeapon]

If you end up with "infinite" mana, you have effectively already won, making LW the very definition of win more.

LW->IR chain is rather pointless as it does not solve the main problem of IR, namely it being uncastable without Aluren. In other words, why not just run IR main, even though it still sucks, it is at least better mid-combo.

Those tricks with lands are cute, but ultimately too slow and cumbersome. Why not just win instead?

You don't need to hard cast Imperial Recruiter after a Living Wish, the deck would never Living Wish for Imperial Recruiter with out an Aluren.

It's not cute, it's the difference between living and losing against Empty the Warrens and other aggro and turning the deck into two card combo instead of four card combo.

[IndyTerminator]

I'm sorry but I'm still not seeing the genuine merit in Living Wish. If you have Aluren down you should be winning, not casting Living Wish. Also, you aren't cutting down on the number of cards to combo. You still need Cavern Harpy and Raven Familiar. So instead of having Cavern Harpy, Raven Familiar, and Aluren. You now need Living Wish -> what you need, Imperial Recruiter -> what you need, and Aluren.

Running a bad card in a deck because you are afraid of one card seems terrible. You are fearing something that you shouldn't fear. Its not like this deck is defenseless. You have Force of Will and Cabal Therapy which help. In games two and three, you get even more pieces of hate for the decks that run Warrens which are Belcher and TES. You are coming up with a very narrow situation (Turn 1 Warrens) to rationalize the inclusion of this card. It seems like tech but I believe the card to be the danger of cool things. I can't see including this card because I believe it worsens so many other match-ups (ex. Goblins).

[Peter_Rotten]

From the opening post:


Back then, our list still had Extended stuff such as Living Wish, but these got cut soon after, because we didn't want to bastardize our sideboard with poor cards. Also, Living Wish's speed is a liability when facing Goblins, since you hardly want to waste your turn 2 doing nothing but a Living Wish while being smashed by a Goblin Lackey.

LW is simply unneeded.

[BreathWeapon]

From the opening post:

LW is simply unneeded.

Toad posted that in 2005, and I'm certain he wasn't using a SB Imperial Recruiter or concerning himself with non-High Tide combo.

@IT

Aluren and Living Wish is a two card combo, Living Wish tutors for Imperial Recruiter, after Aluren resolves, Imperial Recruiter tutors for Man o' War, Man o' War returns Imperial Recruiter to hand, Imperial Recruiter tutors for Cavern Harpy, Cavern Harpy returns Man o' War to hand, Man o' War returns Imperial Recruiter to hand, Imperial Recruiter tutors for Raven Familiar etc.

[Vetinari]

You don't seem to grasp the fact that LW->IR after Aluren resolves is strictly worse (you need 2 more mana and drop down to sorcery speed) than simply having IR main. It is not LW that makes for a "2" card combo, but IR.

Tabernacle is an inadequate solution to your problem as it does not solve for ETW for 8+ on the draw. For sideboarded games we already have a superior solution in Deed compared to hoping the Enemy doesn't have enough mana and/or rituals to push the remaining damage through.

For the rest (e.g. wishing for utility creatures) Toad's analysis still stands.

[BreathWeapon]

You don't seem to grasp the fact that LW->IR after Aluren resolves is strictly worse (you need 2 more mana and drop down to sorcery speed) than simply having IR main. It is not LW that makes for a "2" card combo, but IR.

Tabernacle is an inadequate solution to your problem as it does not solve for ETW for 8+ on the draw. For sideboarded games we already have a superior solution in Deed compared to hoping the Enemy doesn't have enough mana and/or rituals to push the remaining damage through.

For the rest (e.g. wishing for utility creatures) Toad's analysis still stands.

Both points are illogical,

No one is casting Living Wish for Imperial Recruiter after resolving an Aluren, people are casting Living Wish for Imperial Recruiter on turn three and then casting Aluren on turn 4.

Living Wish for The Tabernacle at Prednell Vale is an inadequate solution, but Pernicious Deed is an adequate solution? Both cards resolve on turn 3, so the affect on Empty the Warrens is identical.

Drawing into the mana to push the damage thru' is some serious luck on their part, and regardless, Pernicious Deed isn't an answer to this problem at all in the MD.

I'm just not seeing how Chain of Vapor and Chord of Calling are better than Living Wish; sure Living Wish is slower, but it's game winning.

[Cait_Sith]

Living Wish for The Tabernacle at Prednell Vale is an inadequate solution, but Pernicious Deed is an adequate solution? Both cards resolve on turn 3, so the affect on Empty the Warrens is identical

No, the affect is totally different. Play Deed, kill board. Play Tabernacle, hope they don't have mana out. Often there is a good chance the EtW tokens will have smashed your face at least once, so if they have 2-3 mana sitting there those tokens can go all the way if you aren't careful. Deed at least ends the problem NOW and can sweep away artifact mana they have sitting around.

[Vetinari]

Both points are illogical,

No one is casting Living Wish for Imperial Recruiter after resolving an Aluren,
You really should make up your mind:

the deck would never Living Wish for Imperial Recruiter with out an Aluren

Aluren and Living Wish is a two card combo, Living Wish tutors for Imperial Recruiter, after Aluren resolves

[Zach Tartell]

Yo, I'm pretty new to this deck, and I'd really like to play it, but I have NO IDEA how to sideboard. COuld somebody write up a list with the relevant matchups with the non LW board?

[Obfuscate Freely]

Yo, I'm pretty new to this deck, and I'd really like to play it, but I have NO IDEA how to sideboard. COuld somebody write up a list with the relevant matchups with the non LW board?

First, you should read this (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12726.html) article, in which Toad explains how to sideboard against the major archetypes.

Also, note that the list in that article is more up to date than the list at the beginning of this thread; the changes are as follows:

MD
-1 Chord of Calling
-1 Wall of Blossoms

+1 Man-o-War
+1 Force of Will

SB
-1 Force of Will
-1 Hydroblast
-2 Mystic Remora

+1 Wall of Blossoms
+1 Loaming Shaman
+2 Divert

I have been using this exact maindeck, and a very similar sideboard. Based on my own experiences, as well as what Toad suggested, this is roughly how I board:

Goblins
-4 Force of Will
-1-3 Cabal Therapy (I will leave 1 or 2 in if I suspect they are boarding Krosan Grip, or maybe Disenchant)

+4/5 Blasts (depending on how many I have)
+1 Wall of Blossoms
+1/2 Pernicious Deed (you'll really only want these if they bring in permanent-based hate)

Most Goblin players won't bring in Chalices, since they have to be set at 2 or 3 to impact the combo, but be aware that Chalice at 1 does stop the Blasts and Chains (as well as Brainstorm and Therapy). I suppose that Chalice at 1 backed up by a Pyrostatic Pillar would be bad times (you'd need to have boarded in the Deeds), but I've never seen it happen.

Basically, the Blasts and Wall give you lots of answers to Lackey and let you buy plenty of time to assemble the combo and go off. If they signal Krosan Grip (it'll be pretty obvious if a Goblin player is holding 2G open every turn), just wait them out until you draw a Therapy, can Intuition for a Therapy, or until you just have 8 mana and two Alurens to play in the same turn.

********
-1 Cavern Harpy
-1 Man-o-War
-1 Forest

+2 Pernicious Deed
+1 Wall of Blossoms

As Toad says, you just focus on playing control here. His sideboarding plan is fine.

Solidarity
-1 Forest
-1 Wall of Blossoms

+1 Cabal Therapy
+1 Loaming Shaman

This matchup is difficult unless you draw a Therapy within the first couple of turns, but the Loaming Shaman is very nice to have if you ever manage to resolve an Aluren.

Speaking generally, a Forest can come out against anything without mana denial, and a Man-o-War can come out against anything without creatures. A Cavern Harpy can come out against anything you won't mind going into the late game with (other control decks, mostly).

The Therapy comes in against combo, and any control match you can fit it in against. The Wall comes in against anything it can slow down. Pernicious Deed comes in anytime you need extra answers to hate or when it just wrecks the opponent (against Hanni Fish, for example).

The rest depends a lot on how you build the rest of your sideboard. The Vineyards and Diverts that Toad suggests are fairly narrow (aimed at Deadguy Ale), so I can't say I recommend them today. If you have a specific match you're having trouble sideboarding for, let me know your sideboard, and I can tell you what I'd try.

[BreathWeapon]

You really should make up your mind:

I thought this was obvious but,

1) Correct
2) No one is casting Living Wish for Imperial Recruiter with out Aluren (in hand)
3) It's a comma splice. It should be Living Wish tutors for Imperial Recruiter and pass. Cast Aluren, and then after Aluren resolves cast Imperial Recruiter etc.

You didn't seem to understand the interaction, so I was just explaining it in full.

[APriestOfGix]

Actually, I'm saying that the deck is only FOR good players, since they themselves won't lose games with it.

This deck is to allow the maximum abuse of superior skill over an opponent.

If you're that much better than the other guy, why play a simpler deck when you can make him do all sorts of stupid things with a deck that you know and he doesn't? Look at Karsten's deck from Worlds this year. It's by FAR the hardest deck to pilot at maximal efficiency, but it also leads his opponents down all sorts of wrong plays.


actually TES would win that award, and where are any of the matchups against TES?


it seems like TES beats this pretty well, being faster, and more powerful.

[kirdape3]

That post that you just quoted is now (looks at calendar) 17 months old. TES simply didn't exist yet, as Empty the Warrens (or for that matter Guildpact IIRC) weren't legal.

[TheRock]

actually TES would win that award, and where are any of the matchups against TES?


it seems like TES beats this pretty well, being faster, and more powerful.

I won't get into a "how hard is it to play over this deck" argument because nothing good is probably going to come out of it, but I can assure you that this deck is NOT easy to play. One thing about TES is that Aluren not only runs FoW which really hurts but it also runs Cabal Therapy. The TES - Aluren matchup isn't as bad as you may think.

Toad's list is a CONTROL deck. It shouldn't be considered combo and it shouldn't be compared to it - it should be compared to other control decks.

[Mr.T]

The Aluren-TES match is fairly even. I have played against Bryant himself with aluren and aluren is currently in the favor at 6-4. You have to keep a fairly solid hand against TES or you instantly lose, either Force open hand or therapy. The first therapy should be on LED as it does slow them just long enough for you to try and set up, followed with turn 2 wall and flashback on therapy. Without Led it makes it harder for the deck to generate the mana to cast Diminishing returns off Burning wish.

[Shriekmaw]

The Aluren-TES match is fairly even. I have played against Bryant himself with aluren and aluren is currently in the favor at 6-4. You have to keep a fairly solid hand against TES or you instantly lose, either Force open hand or therapy. The first therapy should be on LED as it does slow them just long enough for you to try and set up, followed with turn 2 wall and flashback on therapy. Without Led it makes it harder for the deck to generate the mana to cast Diminishing returns off Burning wish.


I was wondering if anyone has tested the Aluren versus Hulk Flash for the upcoming GP? It seems like to be a poor matchup in game 1 at least with only cabal therapy and force of will for protection. I guess it does improve after board as you get access to disrupt and possibly stifle in the board.

Out of all the current combo decks in the Legacy format, I believe Aluren does have the best shot at beating Hulk Flash, just because of the colors the deck is based around.

[tylerwylie]

Hi, I'm trying to build Aluren right now, and I want to know if there's an affordable alternative to Imperial Recruiter, or any different builds that don't run a 35 dollar card x 4. Is there anything that can compare to his effect?

[kabal]

Hi, I'm trying to build Aluren right now, and I want to know if there's an affordable alternative to Imperial Recruiter, or any different builds that don't run a 35 dollar card x 4. Is there anything that can compare to his effect?

Here is a build that was played this year at the second Mana Leak open, which does not run Recruiter. Still a high dollar build, due to the dual land requirement

7th Place
Aluren
Alix Hatfield (ObfuscateFreely)

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Aluren
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o-War
3 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Roots
3 Wall of Blossoms
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
5 Island
1 Forest

Sideboard
3 Disrupt
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Loaming Shaman
2 Duress

[andrew77]

Has the imperial recruiter list posted any good results? Also is there a best imperial recruiter list since i keep seeing a couple different lists and can't decide which is best.

[tylerwylie]

Here is a build that was played this year at the second Mana Leak open, which does not run Recruiter. Still a high dollar build, due to the dual land requirement

7th Place
Aluren
Alix Hatfield (ObfuscateFreely)

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Aluren
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o-War
3 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Roots
3 Wall of Blossoms
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
5 Island
1 Forest

Sideboard
3 Disrupt
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Hydroblast
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Loaming Shaman
2 Duress

Yea I have all those duals, most of the high dollar cards from that list I own. It's just wow Imperial Recruiter costs so much :eek:

[Mr.T]

Here is the list that I have been running.
Aluren:
//1cc
4 Brainstorm
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Chain of Vapor
//2cc
4 Wall of Roots
3 Wall of Blossoms
3 Cavern Harpy
//3cc
4 Raven Familiar
3 Intuition
2 Eternal Witness
2 Man-O'-War
1 Spike Feeder
//4cc
4 Aluren
//5cc
4 Force of Will
//Lands
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Forest
3 Island

[IndyTerminator]

Mr. T, I have a question about your build. I see that you have added Underground Sea. Is this because you were having trouble getting black and blue mana consistently? I know when I have been playing the deck that I wish I had an underground sea to fetch for when I have a Cabal Therapy and Brainstorm in my hand.

[Mr.T]

For the most part, i've never had a problem with the mana base color wise. The Seas just smooth everything out a little nicer when needing that extra black or blue mana after casting aluren. I've had time where i familiar into a therapy or a brainstorm, and have the sea open usually to cast them. otherwise i would either have a bayou or a trop open which doesn't produce either color that i may need at some point.

[georgjorge]

I'm currently trying out a transformational sideboard, mainly against Aggro Black variants (Suicide, Homebrew, Red Death), Fish, and UGw Threshold, but also against various Combo decks (I am slower than other combo decks, so I think it is a better strategy to take out my own combo, and fill the slots with disruption and big beaters). It goes like this...

-4 Aluren
-3 Recruiter
-2 Harpy
-2 Tinder Wall
-1 Feeder
-1 Chain of Vapor
-1 Force (not against combo of course)

+4 Tarmogoyf
+3 Flametongue
+3 Therapy (I play Duress main)
+3 Deed (not against combo, of course)
+1 Duress


It seems to work pretty good, since the controllish deck I play after the transformation has so many tools to beat Aggro-Control, even in game three when they are prepared for it. It's definitely worth trying...

[Toad]

The transformational sideboard is good against Black disruption decks because it trumps their discard plan fairly well and usually lowers your mana curve, making their land destruction less problematic. You shouldnt use this plan against U Based Aggro-Control though, since your Walls and Cabal Therapies do the job here and these matchups are very easy with the Aluren plan.

Flametongue Kavu is not good here. For 4 mana, you could as well drop Aluren, and Aluren on the board negates about 75% of the Black deck arsenal (discard and land destruction). Kavu also makes the deck weaker, because Red is a 4th colour that forces you to diminish the amount of Forests you are running.

Cutting Tinder Walls and Imperial Recruiters Game 2 and 3 is a very smart move.
A smarter move would be to also cut them Game 1.

Regarding one of the previous posts and Underground Sea, I think this dual is unecessary in Aluren. On Turn 1, you do not want to fetch one. Against Aggro, you want Forest to prevent Wasteland, and Black is quite not needed in this matchup. Against Aggro-Control with no Wasteland you want Tropical Island for Brainstorm if needed, and you will not cast Cabal Therapy before Turn 4+ so no need for Black early. Same against Control, you want either Forest or Tropical Island Turn 1, and Bayou late game for the Therapies. For the mid game, as mentionned in the example, situation is similar. Against Aggro you dont need Black because Therapy is crap there, and against Aggro-Control you will cast Therapy the turn you want to resolve Aluren, not the turn you cast Raven Familiar. If you are going off against Aggro-Control or Control, they obviously have no counter spare or they would have used it already, so Therapy is pointless.

[shteev]

Hi guys, I've just picked up Aluren since I've discovered that I own all the cards for it already, and I'm completely choking against Goblins pre-board.... I've won one, out of countless games, and that was from a very, very lucky draw. Any chance of some tips to help me up my game? I've scoured the thread, and while there's a lot written about how difficult this deck is to win with (don't I know it!) there's very little specific advice in it.

[Cait_Sith]

Goblins is a very good matchup for Aluren on the play. You have a 8 walls, plus cards like Raven Familiar, and can clog them up easily. On the draw it is not that great since a Turn 1 Lackey can just steam roll you. Make sure to include maindeck Chain of Vapor, like 1 or 2, so you can have some options to slow down the flood of goblins. Use cards like Spike Feeder, with his ability to gain you life, and Man o War, since he can generate massive tempo swings, carefully. They are strong options, but Goblins can Incinerate them is you aren't careful. The big thing is make sure that you don't play Aluren until you have a good chance to combo out. Goblins has Vial and Ringleader to fill their hand, so letting them drop free Matrons and Warchiefs is just bad business.

[georgjorge]

The transformational sideboard is good against Black disruption decks because it trumps their discard plan fairly well and usually lowers your mana curve, making their land destruction less problematic. You shouldnt use this plan against U Based Aggro-Control though, since your Walls and Cabal Therapies do the job here and these matchups are very easy with the Aluren plan.

Flametongue Kavu is not good here. For 4 mana, you could as well drop Aluren, and Aluren on the board negates about 75% of the Black deck arsenal (discard and land destruction). Kavu also makes the deck weaker, because Red is a 4th colour that forces you to diminish the amount of Forests you are running.

Erm...U-based Aggro-Control is VERY far away from being an easy matchup in my opinion. I don't see how the "Walls and Therapies should do the job there" if they run something like 4 Jitte, 4 Stifle, 4 Force, 4 Duress, and some Disenchants after boarding, like UWb Fish. But that's not even counting the main reason to go transformational - Meddling Mage. If it hits, about your only chance is to resolve a Deed (and not have it Stifled). Bounce really does next to nothing here, as under Aluren they can always replay it at the right time naming Harpy. You CAN grab it with Therapy, but as I said, there are too many targets in their deck for Therapy to be the answer to everything. All in all, the easier path to winning seems just to board the cards that are good against them (Creatures, Deeds, Therapies) and playing cards that can win on their own (Goyf, Flametongue, Lavamancer) instead of having to fight through all their hate to play cards that require other cards to win (Aluren + creatures).

It's true that Flametongue is not meant against Bx aggro but against UW-based aggro, important for taking down those Grunts and Avengers. Also, I've changed the transformational sideboard around a bit, to accomodate

-1 Goyf
-1 Deed
-1 Duress
+3 Grim Lavamancer (good against Mother, Confidant, and lots of stuff)

[Duddelutten]

The imperial Recrutier.. why doesn't anyone play it?

[Van Phanel]

There are two reasons actually:

a) It's a win-more as when you've resolved Aluren against anyone you are probably going to win anyway.
b) It's a dead card if you have no Aluren. Or you'd have to run red mana sources and that would weaken your manabase. Every other card in the deck serves a purpose without Aluren, Recruiter doesn't.

[Parcher]

Erm...U-based Aggro-Control is VERY far away from being an easy matchup in my opinion.)

This is puzzling, as almost all Aluren players have found the opposite. While Black-based Aggro-Control is usually considered Aluren's worst match-up, it hasn't been the same for Blue-based. What specific decks other than Fish are you referring to?


I don't see how the "Walls and Therapies should do the job there" )

Well, Fish has no creatures that can get through the walls, and Threshold has one. The only spell they have that can stop Aluren is Force of Will, as you never have to cast it early due to the aforementioned walls. Therapy rids them of Force of Will. Resolving Aluren wins the game.


if they run something like 4 Jitte, 4 Stifle, 4 Force, 4 Duress, and some Disenchants after boarding, like UWb Fish.)

Jitte is slow as heck and only useful if equipped. Since you can bounce any creature attached to it, even that isn't an issue. Stifle does nothing. Deed gives you so much time that you can guarantee to discard it before activating the Deed. And that is the only card they can use it against. Disenchant does nothing. Period. Aluren runs Force and Therapy. Those tend to cancel out. No wait. They have only one spell we would even consider countering in Meddling Mage. So I think Aluren's discard and countermagic is more valuable, as we can save it. Intuition, Aluren, Therapy, Deed, Eternal Witness, hell even Chain of Vapor sometimes can be a must counter for them.


But that's not even counting the main reason to go transformational - Meddling Mage. If it hits, about your only chance is to resolve a Deed (and not have it Stifled). Bounce really does next to nothing here, as under Aluren they can always replay it at the right time naming Harpy. You CAN grab it with Therapy, but as I said, there are too many targets in their deck for Therapy to be the answer to everything.)

Well you can always Force a Mage. As far as the multiple bounce spells go, I would recommend doing that whole bounce and grab with Therapy before you cast Aluren. Plus the fact that Mage can't actually damage you kind of gives plenty of time to find an answer. A wall and a Harpy is enough to race Fish without the combo if they try the heavy disruption route. And as I mentioned, there are only three possible Therapy targets. Mage, Force, and if a Deed is in play, Stifle.



All in all, the easier path to winning seems just to board the cards that are good against them (Creatures, Deeds, Therapies) and playing cards that can win on their own (Goyf, Flametongue, Lavamancer) instead of having to fight through all their hate to play cards that require other cards to win (Aluren + creatures).

It's true that Flametongue is not meant against Bx aggro but against UW-based aggro, important for taking down those Grunts and Avengers. Also, I've changed the transformational sideboard around a bit, to accomodate

-1 Goyf
-1 Deed
-1 Duress
+3 Grim Lavamancer (good against Mother, Confidant, and lots of stuff)

I can't really understand your sideboard. Therapy is probably the only card that makes this deck viable. Running Duress instead of it might just be a knee-jerk reaction. The whole man-plan thing sounds good against Deadguy types, but with this sideboard you have no chance against TES, IGGy, Belcher, and a slim one against Solidarity. Flametounge is uncastable, and a single Tarmogoyf is far too slow. Plus, adding a fourth color severely worsens a favorable match-up in Goblins.

[Toad]

Blue-based Aggro-Control is overall a pretty good matchup for Aluren if you are a bit experienced with the deck. Meddling Mage is a very minor annoyance that will only prevent you from playing Aluren during the first few turns of the game, which are actually the turns were you do not want to play Aluren anyways, but instead play Control. Winning with Meddling Mage on the stack after playing Chain of Vapor is rather common. Duress can only hit Aluren Game 1, and you can match their 4 Duress with your 4 Brainstorms if you play conservative, which you should in this matchup. The rest of the Control and Combo elements are creatures. Disenchant does next to nothing to Aluren, Aluren does not win the Fish matchup by playing Combo but through Cabal Therapies, Walls, Chain of Vapor and Pernicious Deed, and Disenchant is either weak or bad against these.

Blue-based Aggro-Control matchup is also quite better than before, because metagames where Blue-based Aggro-Control decks are widely played tend to be low on Black-based Aggro-Control decks. This means you can devote about no sideboard card to Black decks in these metagames, which frees 3 or 4 slots in the sideboard. Good bye Divert or Call of the Herd, welcome Massacre. Instead of having to pay 3 (Pernicious Deed) or 4 (Aluren) to win the game, you know have a 0cc win condition against Fish variants.

The only Fish variant I dont really like facing is 4C Threshold, because they can run Red Elemental Blast in the sideboard, but for some reason this deck is underplayed. Its not even a bad matchup for Aluren, overall 50/50.

Your sideboard is fairly original and pretty different from what I would play in mine, so this might be the reason why you have problems against Fish variants. The current Legacy metagame is extremely favourable to Aluren.

Regarding Imperial Recruiter, I find this card bad in Aluren, and I've already expressed my opinion on it earlier in this thread. Some players like it, I dont. Its bad draw if you are 3C, and I like 7 basics and 7 Fetchlands more than Taigas against Goblins.

[georgjorge]

First of all, thanks for taking the time to explain some things about the Fish matchup to me. You also convinced me that the red splash for the sideboard isn't that good after all. I'm not trying to argue that you have a bad matchup in Fish, but trying to find out HOW to play for it to be positive.

I DO try to play Control against U-based Aggro-Control, but I'm still puzzled about how easy the matchup seems to you...


Well, Fish has no creatures that can get through the walls, and Threshold has one.

Fish usually plays Dark Confidant, or Counterbalance, and frequently gets it out on turn two or three, and sitting behind your walls letting your opponent draw two a turn (or counter your spells with Top) seems like a weak plan.


Jitte is slow as heck and only useful if equipped. Since you can bounce any creature attached to it, even that isn't an issue.

Something like first turn Mother, second turn Jitte, third turn equip and swing is not that slow. Especially considering that you DON'T want to go for the fast kill, but set up your Therapies and Wills before playing Aluren, I think they have plenty of time to accumulate counters.

As for Mage...Deed only comes in after the first game, and if you want to overcome a competent opponent with Mage using bounce, you need at least a second Harpy (to go off in response to them dropping Mage as an instant). That would leave us with Force to stop Mage. That works, but a) you still need three cards (Chain + Force + pitch) to stop one, and b) I find Duress to work better almost always in Mage-less matchups, meaning I have to play Forces over better cards for this specific matchup. Since I still have problems with the Mage, I now have replaced one Chain with Ghastly Demise, and a Recruiter with another Witness, allowing me to Intuition for Demise + double Witness and trade with the Mage one-for-one.

[Toad]

Something like first turn Mother, second turn Jitte, third turn equip and swing is not that slow.
If you got a Wall out Turn 2, you are on 20 life Turn 3 and they still cannot blow your Wall Turn 4 before attacking. Also unless they got 3 lands and 2 1-drops, they will only have a Mother of Runes out Turn 4 equipped with a Jitte sitting with 0 counters. Thats not really a clock.


Especially considering that you DON'T want to go for the fast kill, but set up your Therapies and Wills before playing Aluren, I think they have plenty of time to accumulate counters.
Slow kill is Turn 6/7 usually. Accumulating counters is usually irrelevant when you can wipe them out with a single Cabal Therapy.


if you want to overcome a competent opponent with Mage using bounce, you need at least a second Harpy (to go off in response to them dropping Mage as an instant).
Game plan when facing Meddling Mage is usually ramping to 6 mana, Cabal Therapy on Force of Will, Chain of Vapor Meddling Mage. If you have a creature out, flashback Therapy to clear Meddling Mage and drop Aluren. If you dont, drop Aluren, play a creature for free, flashback Therapy and win with Meddling Mage on the stack. If they somehow manage to slip a Meddling Mage through your Aluren in response to one of your Cavern Harpy, you can always chain Raven Familiars and Man'O-Wars in response to dig for a second Cavern Harpy. If you have no Raven Familiar to spare because they went Meddling Mage in response to one, you can also use Man'O-War and Cavern Harpy to trigger a bounce on all their creatures and then Chain of Vapor Aluren back to your hand after dropping creatures to go Aggro on them. If you still have issues about this matchup, Massacres SB should fix it, as well as a single Essence Warden because its easy to go infinite life without Raven Familiar.

If you still want a man plan, Tarmogoyf is nice, Fetchlands and an Instant will turn him 2/3 always which blocks almost all their creatures, and Intuition can fuel it too. It is not really needed though, but has its use against Black Aggro-Control decks.

EDIT : Bone Shredder is better than Ghastly Demise because of the synergy with Cavern Harpy and Man-O'War.

[georgjorge]

Thanks for the explanations, I see how that gameplan would make things easier...

As for Jitte, I wasn't referring to them using Jitte for punching through damage, but for collecting counters, thus being able to kill your creatures in response to Harpy. Jitte can always be bounced beforehand, but you DO only have two Chains in the deck, and also need to use them for Mage if they got it, so I don't think "can be bounced with Chain" does not mean that the card won't cause you any trouble.

On another note...has anyone already tried Chalice in the sideboard ? Good against combo, and potentially deadly against Threshold and others, though I wonder if the loss of Therapies could ever justify it...

[Parcher]

Again, the Jitte counters are only useable when it is equipped. While you only run two Chain of Vapor, it is quite easy to bounce all of their creatures with Man-O-War, reducing Jitte to lifegain.

I have briefly tried Chalice in the sideboard, as well as Null Rod, Disrupt, and Duress to fight Combo. Null Rod will always be a meta choice; if you expect IGGy, TES, and Belcher...run four. Chalice shuts down Therapy. That would be acceptable if it was a zero sum game.

Unfortunately, you lose temporary disruption(Therapy), a combo enabler(CoV), and draw(Brainstorm) to gain a permanent disruption piece that can be worked around. I don't find it needed against Aggro-Control, as it conflicts with Deed. And I have found both Disrupt and Duress almost as good against Combo in conjunction with Therapy and Force. I run Duress if expecting more of the Ritual Combo decks, and Board Control, and Disrupt if expecting Black-based Aggro-Control or Solidarity. Though it is also somewhat useful against Combo and Control, it won't often draw you into more disruption with this deck.

[Zach Tartell]

Again, the Jitte counters are only useable when it is equipped. While you only run two Chain of Vapor, it is quite easy to bounce all of their creatures with Man-O-War, reducing Jitte to lifegain.


I hate to tic-tac-toe the boards like this, but that statement is incorrect. You can remove jitte counters at any time, regardless of equip-ment or not. If you choose the +2/+2 then nothing happens. Otherwise, everything is useable.

[Parcher]

Don't apologize Zach, I'm wrong. I looked it up as opposed to writing when I was tired. You're right about the counters, it was the +2/+2 I was thinking of that doesn't work.

Regardless, the example stands. There is no way they can successfully cast, equip, and gain enough counters on Jitte for it to matter before Aluren can either bounce the creature to stop the accumulation of counters, counter or bounce the stick, sweep the board, or just go off.

Like mentioned previously, a 1/1 carrying a stick with no counters turn 4 at the earliest is simply not a clock.

[georgjorge]

Counterbalance + Top seems to crop up in more and more decks, and - if played properly - can cause this deck problems, since it forces you to go off faster than you might wish, and counters therapy BOTH times rather easily, as well as Chain of Vapor. Therefore, it negates your most important defenses (against Counterspells and Meddling Mage), and even if they don't have a Force for your Aluren, it is still probable that they will be able to counter your Harpy (although you can board in a Harmonic Sliver if you're playing Recruiters). So I'm thinking about sideboarding in stuff against it besides Deed...probably the best cards for that are

Krosan Grip / Wipe Away
Reverent Silence
Spell Snare
Annul

with Spell Snare and Wipe Away probably being the ones with the broadest uses.

Also, since all of my losses seem to come against a) hand destruction b) counterspells c) land destruction, I've taken to sideboarding in two Deep Analysis in various matchups against the first two. It's similar to Therapy in that it is a card for setting up your combo, is great against discard, and also great with Intuition.

[Sigar]

So I'm really interested in this deck since it seems both good and fun to play. My question for now would be, what deck list is the best? Some deck lists contain the Imperial Recruiter and some the Raven - any new techs lately?

[honz]

In regards to counter-top problems. It has been my expierience, that if you see counter-top (and have to let it resolve), your going to have to wait as long as possible. You lead off with a wall followed by a man-o-war (or other 3cc), followed by another 2cc. This forces him to tap-out from the top. Once he is tapped out, drop cabals like crazy (recur them too); this should force him to put top ontop of library. Once the 1cc spell is ontop, you can go about your buisness (since your win-con doesnt require a 1cc spell). It takes a decent hand, but a couple brainstorms, and some thinking ahead should do the trick. However, if at all possible, don't let him resolve a top in the first place (counter-balance isnt as bad).

As far as a deck-list goes, essentially the best one is the one the first post suggest for GP lille. Here it is for reference:

// Mana Base
1 Island
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
// Combo cards
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
2 Man-o'-War
3 Cavern Harpy
4 Raven Familiar
4 Aluren
// Control
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
// Draw and Tutors
1 Chord of Calling
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm


Most people have done these changes:
-1 chord of calling
-1 polluted delta
-1 wall of blossoms
+1 force of will
+1 Man-o-war
+1 windswept heath (maybe this is just my change)

Also, some people have gone to (but it is kinda a meta-call):
-1 FoW
+1 Eternal witness



As far as new tech, Dream Stalker has some possabilities (in the man-o-war spot). Man-o-war might bounce their creatures, but stalker can block them, which is even better. Also, stalker bounces any permanent; you can bounce a land if you missed your land drop, or bounce aluren if it gets targeted...etc. I haven't tested it yet, but it seems way better than man-o-war. However, man-o-war can do some nice tricks if aluren is not in play (like abuse the shit out of summoning sickness). It is something to consider...

There is a new article down at SCG about "innovator aluren, the best deck in legacy" or some such BS. It uses imperial recruiter, which does not belong in the deck. Here is that list:

2 Forest
1 Island
4 Force of Will
1 Etched Oracle
2 Eternal Witness
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Roots
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Spike Feeder
4 Aluren
4 Intuition
1 Dream Stalker
2 Deep Analysis
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Man-o'-War



The recruiter builds are weak, at best. This one splashes red, so you could hard-cast recruiter if you had the right hand. Im not sure how optimized this list is, but is one of the better recruiter builds. I (and many others) think the build without recruiter is better, but feel free to try both and see how you like them.

[outsideangel]

I think a small number of Recruiters is just fine, but I also think splashing red just to play them is somewhat silly. Dropping a couple of copies of Cavern Harpy for a couple of Recruiters works out okay.

You can play Aluren + Recruiter as a more vulnerable two-card combo (because instant-speed removal will disrupt it) or just wait until you've drawn either the Familiar or Harpy and then use Recruiter to find the missing piece and go off normally. It lets you be a little more flexible about when you can combo off, and the added speed is helpful against other combo decks since you're often under a lot of pressure and they won't be able to stop you. I imagine that against removal-light disruption decks it can help you recover from discard more quickly as well, giving you something of an 'oops, I win' factor off of the topdeck, but I haven't tested this extensively.

The price is, of course, that unless you splash the fourth color (not the best choice, I think) Recruiter is dead outside of the combo, being unable to do the tricks that Harpy could. Essentially, playing Recruiter like this allows you more flexibility in regards to the combo element but less flexibility in regards to the control element. I'd go with whatever you feel is best for your metagame.

[C.P.]

I've been testing the deck recently, and was wondering about few things.

How good is Intuition in the deck, compared to Lim dul's Vault? Is there a reason why LDV is not played in the deck? Also, what about confidant SB?

Also, How do you deal with Belcher or TES?

[Eldariel]

I've been testing the deck recently, and was wondering about few things.

How good is Intuition in the deck, compared to Lim dul's Vault? Is there a reason why LDV is not played in the deck? Also, what about confidant SB?

One of the great things about Intuition is that if it resolves, you can grab 3 Cabal Therapies against decks trying to hinder you with countermagic and rip their hand apart with your utility-creatures you don't especially need after their effect (Wall of Blossom, Wall of Roots, Man-O'-War, Raven Familiar, etc.). Also, not losing in terms of handsize is of course beneficial, but really, the Intuition for Therapies is a backbreaker. You can actually force them to discard 5+ cards worth of business with it, which means that they're forced to counter every Intuition you attempt, meaning you've got a very cheap and powerful instant-speed threat.

Confidant ain't horrible and could indeed work to counteract Discard and LD since decks running those aren't generally running too much cheap point-removal. It's dead midcombo, which hurts, but it can help you recover from early barrage of LD and discard and is cheap, so it definitely looks like a solid anti-Black slot. Quite certainly better than Toad's plan of 'the deck sucks so nobody plays it'. Then again, they WILL kill it if they've got removal, since no other creature in your deck actually presents a credible threat they need to deal with, so it might be somewhat vulnerable. But yea, if you find yourself with some excess sideboard slots, he's just fine.


Also, How do you deal with Belcher or TES?

The reason the deck really wants to run those Force of Wills. Also puts Therapy to a good use. Just try to stop them from going off too early and rip their hand apart given an opportunity, and if they Warrens early, you still have the Turbo-Aluren to possibly race them as they usually can't kill you before turn 3.

[Sigar]

What is Aluren's best answer to Vial Affinity and Combo decks (besides cabal therapy)?

[C.P.]

What is Aluren's best answer to Vial Affinity and Combo decks (besides cabal therapy)?

On Vial Affinity, the Deed. Deed with other things to buy time makes the matchup not too hard.

[Maveric78f]

Chain of vapor is not so bad neither...

Null rod could fit into the sideboard too as it improves a lot against storm decks which the deck fails to beat.

[Lego]

Slay played Aluren yesterday in Western Mass to a Top 8 finish. I'm sure he'll share a bit about his list and the tournament if you ask, but I know he played Lim-Dul's Vault, and as far as I saw, it was stellar all day. I definitely recommend it, although I'm not sure what he cut for it. I know he only had 7 walls main. He also lamented not having the 4th Harpy.

[Sigar]

I only run 1 cavern harpy atm. My only problem is pitching it to fow and then ending up without win condition. 2 just seems too much, since it's dead if you don't combo off. Thoughts?

What about EE over Deed?

[Lego]

I only run 1 cavern harpy atm. My only problem is pitching it to fow and then ending up without win condition. 2 just seems too much, since it's dead if you don't combo off. Thoughts?

You absolutely need Cavern Harpy to combo off. It's what allows the combo to work, and in conjunction with Raven Familiar, it allows you to find the rest of the combo. With 1 Harpy, you will way too often be left with situations where you have Raven Familiar and Aluren, but can't combo off for lack of a Harpy. After Aluren, Cavern Harpy is the most important card in the deck.

[Toad]

After Aluren, Cavern Harpy is the most important card in the deck.

Cavern Harpy is actually the worst card in the deck, since it is the only one that does nothing until you are planning to win.

Raven Familiar and Man'O-War are both much better than Cavern Harpy. I would run 1 Cavern Harpy if I could, because that is all you want to see. Nevertheless, since you could find yourself in situations where you need to pitch it to Force of Will, it is safer to run at least 2, which is what I have at the moment. It is quite a necessary evil, unfortunately.


What about EE over Deed?

Pernicious Deed wipes everything, including 4CC Cards if needed (Humility for example). It is much more versatile than Engineered Explosives. Being able to kill Mongoose and Tarmogoyf or Werebear at once is also a big bonus. If you want more SB cards against B/W Confident and all the Fish variants running rampant, Massacre is very good.

[Maveric78f]

The worst card in the deck is aluren. Harpie is very good in long term plan as a blocker and as a beater. Moreover it can be used to recur manowar and ravens in your builds and coiling oracle in my build (which will become as good as the walls of blossom if the domination of threshold is confirmed). It's not completely useless with no aluren in play.

[Sigar]

Another question is, what draw spells to run in Aluren?

Raven Familiar is simply not enough. I see most people run Deep Analysis, which is a great card, but I think it's too slow. I want to be able to draw cards early on, so I can establish a decent hand at turn 3-5.

Any thoughts on this matter?

[Maveric78f]

usually you play :
3/4*intuition
3/4*wall of blossom
4*brainstorm
1/4*raven
0/4*coiling oracle

As for myself, I use respectively top the list 3, 3, 4, 1, 3.

[Sigar]

Why Coiling Oracle over Raven?

Oracle seems hopeless to me. Even wall of blossoms is better, due to the fact that it's a better blocker, it's easier to cast and it doesn't reveal the card you draw. The only upside about oracle is the land trick, but to me this card doesn't belong in Aluren.dec.

About the missing draw spell, I am thinking either:
1) Compulsive Research
2) Deep Analysis
or
3) Telling Time

[Slay]

IMHO, the only correct number for Harpies is 4. Aluren is fundamentally a bad deck. It plays low amounts of disruption, a three-card combo, some minimal search, and a whole lotta dead or semi-dead cards. The deck wins by being a control-combo deck, which in general is an extremely powerful archetype, and by having a nigh-undisruptable combo when going off. However, the format is getting faster, much faster, and your turn 2 Wall of Blossoms looks pretty damn cute against a turn 3 swinging 4/5 Tarmogoyf. Or, for that matter, against 8 1/1s on the first turn.

There's a real urge when playing this deck to take out combo pieces and put in other things, under the guise of 'optimization'. I think this is wrong. The ability to combo off as soon as possible and have the most chance to succeed is of much more importance than it was when Aluren Top32'd Lille, where the greatest threat was a 1/1 on turn 1, or maybe a couple of 3/3s on turn 4. I lost at least 1 game(in the Top4, no less), and maybe 2 or 3, based on my trying to combo off(with lethal damage coming down the next turn) without a Harpy, and striking out. Chain of Vapor couldn't even help me, because I'd have to combo off well before I wanted.

It's a silly mistake to play the deck like a control deck, in this atmosphere. You used to be able to get away with playing like a control deck for 5-8 turns until you had to win, but now you have to revert to being a combo deck much quicker. And while it feels manly to say "Oh yeah, I play Aluren with ONLY ONE Cavern Harpy" and have the ladies go nuts over you, how do you think it'll feel when you're halfway through getting your combo on and you realize that you can't keep it up anymore? Pretty bad, that's for certain. Even if you have protection, you still can't get cocky, because it won't help you finish the job. Don't be a fool, play all your Cavern Harpies(unless you're spectacularly good at the game). I'm out of innuendos.
-Slay

[Sigar]

I believe the fool is the one who plays 4 cavern harpy - a truly dead card in the deck.

Yes, 1 seems tuff, but it really isn't. There's plenty of ways to get this little beast. I am thinking of adding 1 more only because I so often pitch it to FoW.

[Slay]

I believe the fool is the one who plays 4 cavern harpy - a truly dead card in the deck.

Yes, 1 seems tuff, but it really isn't. There's plenty of ways to get this little beast. I am thinking of adding 1 more only because I so often pitch it to FoW.

Of course there's plenty of ways to get cavern harpy. But they suck, are slow, and require lots of mana. Which you don't have, usually. Taking out vital combo pieces just because they're "dead" goes against the fundamental principle of combo, which I am arguing is the direction this deck needs to take.
-Slay

[shteev]

Of course there's plenty of ways to get cavern harpy. But they suck, are slow, and require lots of mana. Which you don't have, usually. Taking out vital combo pieces just because they're "dead" goes against the fundamental principle of combo, which I am arguing is the direction this deck needs to take.
-Slay


Slay - What do you think of the Imperial Recruiter version? The library search allows it to play less dead cards, and it's a 2 card combo instead of a 3 card one, making it much easier to get all the pieces in your hand.

I'm kind of a greenhorn at playing the Aluren deck, I admit, and currently the Recruiter version seems much stronger to me... but I'm willing to learn :)

[Cait_Sith]

The Recruiter version has problems with its mana base being much weaker due to running four colors (the Gobs MU does tend to drop since now they have millions of ways to attacks your mana base, making Recruiter effectively dead unless you land an Aluren).

[Slay]

Slay - What do you think of the Imperial Recruiter version? The library search allows it to play less dead cards, and it's a 2 card combo instead of a 3 card one, making it much easier to get all the pieces in your hand.

I'm kind of a greenhorn at playing the Aluren deck, I admit, and currently the Recruiter version seems much stronger to me... but I'm willing to learn :)

I haven't played around with the Imperial Recruiter version much, but it would seem that adding 4 combo cards that don't fundamentally help you go off(they're just tutors) is a bad idea. What would you cut for them? Other combo pieces? Technically you could run a combo-base that looks like:

4 Aluren
4 Recruiter
1 Cavern Harpy
2 Man o War
1 Spike Feeder
1 Wall of Roots
1 Eternal Witness

and make it streamlined, but in reality you're only saving around 6-7 slots, with three of those slots being big walls. And your combo dies to Mogg Fanatic, and StP, and other cool stuff. In short, it's not particularly worth it, it ends up looking like Spring Tide if High Tide cost 4 mana to play. And if you go the opposite route and keep all the combo pieces in and add 4 Recruiters, you end up with the Meandeck Aluren build which is about as good as the regular kind, except for the extra $300 pricetag.
-Slay

[shteev]

The Recruiter version has problems with its mana base being much weaker due to running four colors (the Gobs MU does tend to drop since now they have millions of ways to attacks your mana base, making Recruiter effectively dead unless you land an Aluren).

I agree that the Goblin matchup is a big problem, but then, I personally don't think Aluren had such a great matchup in the first place, and it seems to me that Recruiter is stronger than most other decks, particularly control decks. Could you tell me against what other decks the Recruiter has a worse matchup than the non-red version?


I haven't played around with the Imperial Recruiter version much, but it would seem that adding 4 combo cards that don't fundamentally help you go off(they're just tutors) is a bad idea.

How can you say that? Aluren+Recruiter, undisrupted, is a 2 card win; you play the recruiter, fetch a Man'o'war, bounce and replay the recruiter, fetch a Cavern Harpy, and from there have everything you need to win.

(Of course, the chances of you going off undisrupted are small, but you have the rest of your hand to defend yourself with)


And your combo dies to Mogg Fanatic, and StP, and other cool stuff.

The combo doesn't fall to Mogg Fanatic. You can fetch more than one Recruiter in a chain, and then fetch Dream Stalker, which doesn't target a permanent to return it. You don't choose which one to return until the Stalker's effect resolves, and by then it's too late to shoot.

I also don't understand how Recruiter/Aluren is any more vulnerable to StP than the Raven Familiar version.

[Lego]

The combo doesn't fall to Mogg Fanatic. You can fetch more than one Recruiter in a chain, and then fetch Dream Stalker, which doesn't target a permanent to return it. You don't choose which one to return until the Stalker's effect resolves, and by then it's too late to shoot.

Yes it does. You play Aluren, then play Imperial Recruiter. There's your two-card combo, so we assume you have no other pieces. Recruiter's ability resolves, you fetch Man-o'-War or Dream Stalker and play it. In response, I kill the Imperial Recruiter. You bounce the Man-o'-War, or the Dream Stalker, or one of my creatures, and stall.


I also don't understand how Recruiter/Aluren is any more vulnerable to StP than the Raven Familiar version.

Let me explain it then. With the non-Recruiter version, you play Cavern Harpy THEN Raven Familiar. You can then bounce and replay Harpy to great effect, saving your creatures from removal. Removal does not beat you.

In the Recruiter version, the chain is Recruiter --> Man-o'-War bounces Recruiter, Recruiter --> Cavern Harpy bounces Man-o'-War, MoW bounces Recruiter, Recruiter --> Spike Feeder, Wall of Roots, Eternal Witness, win. If you play MoW and they respond by killing Recruiter, you fizzle. If you play Cavern Harpy and they respond to it by killing Man-o'-War, you fizzle. Removal beats you.

[Van Phanel]

Well, shteev meant the following, when he was talking about dreamstalker:

You play Recruiter, fetch another Recruiter and proceed with Dreamstalker. Then the Mogg Fanatic won't do anything.

In the Swords part, you can easily go like:
Recruiter-> Recruiter->Recruiter->Dreamstalker->Dreamstalker, Harpy, that way playing around even multiple swords.

In the comboturn you described, your Raven Familiar can still be swordsed with Harpy on the stack.

I think because of those things in the Recruiter-version of the deck, Dream Stalker is better than Man-o-War by far.

[Lego]

In the comboturn you described, your Raven Familiar can still be swordsed with Harpy on the stack.

That's incorrect. There is never a time when Raven Familiar is in play with Harpy on the stack, unless they've already used removal. You play Harpy, the gating ability goes on the stack, then you play Raven Familiar. It's ability goes on the stack. If they Swords it, you return Harpy to hand, and replay it. They have to Swords Familiar AGAIN. In this way, they need instant speed removal equal to your Raven Familiars + Cavern Harpies + Man-o'-Wars + 1.

I've never played Aluren with Dream Stalker before, but it seems that you're right, he can dodge removal pretty effectively. I still don't think Recruiter is good in the deck, but he's now not obviously suboptimal, and I'll have to alter my testing to see what I really think of him.

[slobad23]

I'm glad someone got there before me and pointed out that recruiter version does not roll over to removal. This is far from true... removal is a hinderance at most. I would compare it to any combo deck match-up... but one i am familiar with is playing against solidarity where a good player doesn't risk losing when the don't have to - they play around your two answers to the combo - if you had more than 2 answers then i guess congratulations on being a lucksack are in order.

blabbering aside, my point is that you don't play into the hands of a spell that should have no real effect on the match-up ie swords to plowshares.

i have played against both verions of the deck (primarily with goblins) and the recruiter version, though having a more unstable manabase in the face of wasteland and port, makes up for this with the protection and setup spells that take the place of the otherwise useless man'o'war in yout hand.

The "other" (i will refrain from calling it the sub-par version until i have got into this thread a little more) does not have a good match up against goblins despite what people seem to claim about the deck. A couple walls were not enough for survival decks and they are not enough for alluren. the version with lots of fours of's runs multiples of cards when it does not have to! that is the main thing i don't get. if you only need to run 1/2 of something and you can use the rest for disruption and protection - i don't see it as being that hard a decision to make.

drawing multiple man'o'war is not going to save you against combo... neither is a hand with 2 cavern harpy... - why not fill those slots with something a little more worth while.

i wil take a second to refer to flash, where a large majority of players went for the kiki jiki combo because it was taking up less space that could have been other more relevant spells to protecting your combo.

i think what i really need is a proof that you are able to go off unhindered more with the non recruiter version that you are with the recruiter version against the provon legacy decks.

that's my 2 cents

[mustang8907]

got a question for all of you recruiter fans out there what do you do when your opponent has a deed on board????? as a person who has played aluren(raven version and recruiter version) and also a person that has played against it. with more and more control decks running deed. and any deck for that matter that runs black and green. 1 deed wins the game. now now i know that some of you will disagree with me but just say this. if you play with recruiter then you leave the rest of your creatures to a 1 in the deck because you dont need them. as you go off.. you get double or even triple recruiter out just in case of swords and stuff. and eventually you get your bouncer next then your harpy. what do you do when he blows the deed for 3 with the harpy on the stack(put in mind that my opponent had another recruiter in hand) your stuck. you can go and get every creature. but it is worthless without that lone harpy you have in your deck.


what if someone trickbinds the harpy. then swords your harpy. instant loss of game.


all im saying is that recruiter is not the way to go. the best way to go is make the deck a control deck with a combo kill. works better that way.

[Van Phanel]

That's incorrect. There is never a time when Raven Familiar is in play with Harpy on the stack, unless they've already used removal. You play Harpy, the gating ability goes on the stack, then you play Raven Familiar. It's ability goes on the stack. If they Swords it, you return Harpy to hand, and replay it. They have to Swords Familiar AGAIN. In this way, they need instant speed removal equal to your Raven Familiars + Cavern Harpies + Man-o'-Wars + 1.

I missed that. Well, we both learned something there :wink:

So I've been playing some games with the non-recruiter version now and I always have the same problem: what do you board out? I'm primarily speaking of the Treshhold matchup here. Against most other matchups you don't need much anyway/ can board out walls.

I usually end up boarding out random one-ofs, but that sure isn't optimal, is it?

[diffy]

So I've been playing some games with the non-recruiter version now and I always have the same problem: what do you board out? I'm primarily speaking of the Treshhold matchup here. Against most other matchups you don't need much anyway/ can board out walls.


Directly from Toad's primer on starcitygames.com (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12726.html):



Post board I usually cut a Man-O'-War, a Cavern Harpy and a Forest for the last Wall of Blossoms and the two Pernicious Deeds, and switch my game plan to a heavy Control deck.








got a question for all of you recruiter fans out there what do you do when your opponent has a deed on board?????


Option A)
Tutor up a Stern Proctor (http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=7919) and bounce the deed before comboing out

Option B)
Stall until you get a Chain of Vapor (http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=23380) and then proceede comboing... decks with Deed should be some sort of control deck with no relevant clock

Option C)
Just do whatever you would do with the non-recruiter version too... It isn't really that a difference if they blow the deed in responce to your first harpy or anything, is it?

I'll quote the primer (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12726.html) once again here:



Post board you'll just bring in the Pernicious Deeds to get read of potential problems (Solitary Confinement, Humility, Rule of Law, Pithing Needle) over a Cavern Harpy and an Intuition.








what if someone trickbinds the harpy. then swords your harpy. instant loss of game.


Force the Swords? Chain Harpy back to your hand? Who plays trickbind anyways in Legacy except for the random stifle/'naught deck?







all im saying is that recruiter is not the way to go. the best way to go is make the deck a control deck with a combo kill. works better that way.


It is very true what you say here, but I somewhat have to disagree... Yes, Aluren is by it's nature not a fast combo deck and shouldn't be tried to be made one but playing this deck I often found that people just throw enormus amounts of hate against the deck (be it discard, Krosan Grip, Extirpate, Meddling Mage, Rule of Law... hell, even multiple disenchant effects) and that it's really hard to proceede comboing facing all of that... it can be done, I have done it, but the amount of hate cost me a round at least in every tournament I played Aluren in... costing me top8 twice.
All of this can be simply ignored by making the deck faster because people will just ignore your 'control elements' and focus on disrupting your combo to deprive you your kill...
A bit like Solidarity, I really think the original version is very resiliant and can play through almost anything given the time... the problem is only that in the modern legacy metagame, people don't give you that time.

Edit: Damn... beaten to it by shteev (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=150524&postcount=151)

[shteev]

got a question for all of you recruiter fans out there what do you do when your opponent has a deed on board????? as a person who has played aluren(raven version and recruiter version) and also a person that has played against it. with more and more control decks running deed. and any deck for that matter that runs black and green. 1 deed wins the game. now now i know that some of you will disagree with me but just say this. if you play with recruiter then you leave the rest of your creatures to a 1 in the deck because you dont need them. as you go off.. you get double or even triple recruiter out just in case of swords and stuff. and eventually you get your bouncer next then your harpy. what do you do when he blows the deed for 3 with the harpy on the stack(put in mind that my opponent had another recruiter in hand) your stuck. you can go and get every creature. but it is worthless without that lone harpy you have in your deck.

Again, I don't understand how Non-Recruiter-Aluren is any more stable against Deed. You play the Aluren, you play the Cavern Harpy, and in response, before the Harpy resolves, your opponent triggers the deed for 4 destroying the Aluren. Is there some trick I'm missing?


what if someone trickbinds the harpy. then swords your harpy. instant loss of game.

all im saying is that recruiter is not the way to go. the best way to go is make the deck a control deck with a combo kill. works better that way.

I agree with that last statement, but what I'd say is that Recruiter-Aluren, being a 2 card combo instead of a 3 card one, has more resources available to protect itself going off than Non-Recruiter-Aluren. Trickbind+Swords on the harpy is only loss of game if you have nothing else in hand. If you have a Chain of Vapor, or a Man'o'War, or another Recruiter to fetch Man'o'War, or a Force of Will, or a Cabal therapy in your graveyard, then you don't lose the game.

If Non-Recruiter-Aluren needs to go off soon, and it has 2 parts of the combo, it must look actively for the third, right? On the other hand, Recruiter-Aluren only has 2 parts of the combo, and so when it has these it can use it's searching cards to look for extra protection. Whilst the Non-Recruiter version might have to go looking for a Cavern Harpy to complete it's 3 card combo with an Intuition, Recruiter-Aluren could instead Intuition for 3 Cabal Therapies... that's as close to a concrete guarantee of going off undisrupted and winning the game as you can get.

Lastly... and this is a genuine question, as I say I'm not an expert with this deck... what is this deck which plays Trickbind and Swords, and yet at the same time is putting me under pressure to go off on the very next turn?

[diffy]

Again, I don't understand how Non-Recruiter-Aluren is any more stable against Deed. You play the Aluren, you play the Cavern Harpy, and in response, before the Harpy resolves, your opponent triggers the deed for 4 destroying the Aluren. Is there some trick I'm missing?


You can play the Raven Familiar in responce to the deed activation to hope to find some Man-o'-War/Cavern Harpy/Chain of Vapor in the top3 cards to continue ontop of the stack... you then proceede to infinited life/arbitary amounts of mana and sculpt the perfect hand to go off again next turn while ripping apart your opponent's hand with 3+ Cabal Therapies and replaying nearly your entire library with the mana you gained of the Wall of Roots loop... hell, you could even go off again in the same turn after letting the deed activation resolve... this deck is for sure able to perform some silly tricks...
Once I played against Landstill in a tournament and he made a similar play (activating a Nevinyraals Disk in responce to my first spell) and I had no problem doing above mentioned mooves... but that was just because I had infinited time to sculpt my hand...

For refference I'll just post some decklists to goldfish/test with:

Here the Traditional Version which I played for some time:



// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [A] Underground Sea
3 [A] Bayou
3 [A] Tropical Island
4 [PT] Forest (3)
1 [PT] Swamp (3)
1 [PT] Island (3)

// Creatures
4 [UL] Raven Familiar
3 [PS] Cavern Harpy
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [SH] Spike Feeder
4 [MI] Wall of Roots
3 [PT] Man-o'-War
3 [SH] Wall of Blossoms

// Spells
4 [TE] Aluren
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
SB: 1 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [DIS] Loaming Shaman
SB: 2 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [IA] Hydroblast
SB: 3 [WL] Disrupt
SB: 2 [US] Duress

Here the Recruiter Version which I test right now:



// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [A] Bayou
2 [A] Tropical Island
2 [PT] Forest (3)
1 [PT] Swamp (3)
1 [PT] Island (3)
2 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
1 [PS] Cavern Harpy
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [SH] Spike Feeder
4 [MI] Wall of Roots
2 [PT] Man-o'-War
3 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
1 [UL] Ghitu Slinger
4 [P3] Imperial Recruiter
2 [TSP] Dream Stalker

// Spells
4 [TE] Aluren
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
SB: 1 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [DIS] Loaming Shaman
SB: 2 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [IA] Hydroblast
SB: 1 [US] Duress
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm

By no means I claim the second decklist to be perfect, but it is some starting point and has some potential...

Just for reference, this guy which I know from Real Life Magic top8ed at another major Legacy event in Germany (18.02.2007's Iserlohn) with a Recruiter Powered Version... allthough I disagree with some of his choices, the list is still interesting:



Mainboard
lands (19):
1 Underground Sea
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta

creatures (21):
1 Tinder Wall
2 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
1 Wirewood Savage
4 Wall of Roots
3 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Man-o'-War

spells (20):
4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Intuition
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Force of Will
1 Grapeshot

60 cards

Sidboard

creatures (1):
1 Loaming Shaman

spells (14):
3 Defense Grid
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Krosan Grip
2 Massacre
3 Hydroblast

15 cards

Source: http://www.zkforum.de/showpost.php?p=474527&postcount=25

[mustang8907]

Again, I don't understand how Non-Recruiter-Aluren is any more stable against Deed. You play the Aluren, you play the Cavern Harpy, and in response, before the Harpy resolves, your opponent triggers the deed for 4 destroying the Aluren. Is there some trick I'm missing?



I agree with that last statement, but what I'd say is that Recruiter-Aluren, being a 2 card combo instead of a 3 card one, has more resources available to protect itself going off than Non-Recruiter-Aluren. Trickbind+Swords on the harpy is only loss of game if you have nothing else in hand. If you have a Chain of Vapor, or a Man'o'War, or another Recruiter to fetch Man'o'War, or a Force of Will, or a Cabal therapy in your graveyard, then you don't lose the game.


Lastly... and this is a genuine question, as I say I'm not an expert with this deck... what is this deck which plays Trickbind and Swords, and yet at the same time is putting me under pressure to go off on the very next turn?

for the first part. since everything is at instant speed you can still go off while the deed is on the stack. which means if you have more cards in hand you can still go with the combo such as raven familiar and stuff to get another cavern harpy to kill him before the deed resolves. with recruiter that is the only cavern harpy in the deck.

for the second part yea that is true (other than the cabal therapy because it is a sorcery) if you have something like that then ya your fine but it still the fact that you have to have it in your hand which does not happen all the time. and this kinda also answers your 3rd question mostly random decks. but if you lose to random decks but beat the top tier decks you still wont win the tourny.( i do run them side in my 4c landstill deck and i do top 4 every tourny with it and there is usually about 25 ppl at these tournys.)

if anything else of what i said you can disregard the beggining as long as you read this is a control deck not a combo deck.

[shteev]

for the first part. since everything is at instant speed you can still go off while the deed is on the stack. which means if you have more cards in hand you can still go with the combo such as raven familiar and stuff to get another cavern harpy to kill him before the deed resolves. with recruiter that is the only cavern harpy in the deck.

I think all the hypothetical gamestates which are being presented here are seriously misrepresenting how Recruiter-Aluren would behave in an actual game. I absolutely agree with the fact that this hand:

- Aluren
- Raven Familiar
- Cavern Harpy
- Nothing else relevant

is better than this hand:

- Aluren
- Imperial Recruiter
- Nothing else relevant

How can anyone not agree with this? Clearly, it's true.... but the first hand has an extra relevant card in it. 3 relevant cards > 2 relevant cards, in any deck.

In the time it takes Non-Recruiter-Aluren to draw it's 3rd combo piece, surely, SURELY, it's feasible to assume that Recruiter-Aluren will find a RELEVANT piece of combo protection against whatever threat it sees itself most likely to face; e.g. Force of Will, Cabal Therapy, Chain of Vapor, a second Recruiter, a Man'o'War, Dream Stalker, or Eternal Witness?

[Lego]

i think what i really need is a proof that you are able to go off unhindered more with the non recruiter version that you are with the recruiter version against the provon legacy decks.

I envy you your ability to be paired solely against decks that can't hinder your combo. You might want to choose Belcher over Aluren.

[slobad23]

Edit*

There seems to have been a little confusion. what i meant to say was something along the lines of "going off sucessfully through the disruption they through at you more consistantly".

(good call on belcher btw... it is one of my current decks of choice).

I will carry out more playtesting against a variety of decks with both versions a lot more and try to come up with some actual statistics to try and resolve this. if i'm proved wrong, i'll post on here and let you nkow after i have finished crying :smile:

[Sigar]

So no one on these boards plays Aluren?

I still think it's an amazing deck, and with just a few adjustments, it could be the DTB.

[Zork]

Is this deck still a metagame consideration over goblins?

I mean, how pert is bringing answers to the aluren combo versus bringing answers to goblin lackey?

It may just be me, but I see bringing answers to goblins, belcher, and ETW being a better metagame call than bringing answers to Aluren.

[godryk]

I'm new to this deck, so I'm not flaming, I'm just trying to understand some things about Recruiter Version I'm not sure about. I don't understand why recruiter version is that bad against non-massive removal.

Can't you just play Recruiter into multiple Recruiters, then search several Man-o'-War's (two or three) and then proceed to search for Harpy, if they kill any of your dudes you will still be able to go off. The only advantage non-recruiter version has is to play a Raven Familiar in response to a Deed activation and search for some bouncers. Besides how easy is to get that bouncer, you are relying on luck to get out of a very specific situation. Most of time you have to deal against creature removal. And in this situation you can wait to have an extra bouncer/recruiter in hand, to combo off.

I don't understand what a a more consistent combo which requires more cards is supossed to be more controlish. I think you can make it more controllish by thining your deck and including more disruption.

Of course I'm no an expert and I'm just trying to have a deeper view of the deck. Anyway, I've seen many Imperail Recruiter making Top 8, mainly in Germany and Japan, but also in the US, so maybe isn't that suboptimal.

[Happy Gilmore]

Where did this deck t8 at that promoted it to DTW status? Although this deck might have a chance against thresh (pray to god they don't have Krosan Grip), breakfast just eats it alive. I never went off in an entire ten game set in testing. The matchup is stupid, breakfast is faster and has just as many ways to disrupt the opponent as Aluren. Not to mention that finding room for SB cards is even more challenging than for Breakfast.

[Lego]

Can't you just play Recruiter into multiple Recruiters, then search several Man-o'-War's (two or three) and then proceed to search for Harpy, if they kill any of your dudes you will still be able to go off.

This doesn't work with Man-o'-War. It does with Dream Stalker though. Here's why:

Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Man-o'-War. He comes into play and you target a Recruiter. I kill the Recruiter, and you fizzle.

Here's why Dream Stalker works:

Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker. He comes into play and his ability triggers. I kill a Recruiter, you bounce a different one. I kill the Dream Stalker, you bounce Recruiter and find a new one. Here you need a Stifle to disrupt the combo. Dream Stalker bounces Recruiter, he gets Dream Stalker, which bounces Recruiter, which gets Cavern Harpy, then Recruiter gets the rest of your combo.

[shteev]

Where are the decklists of the decks that gave this archetype DTW status? And do we know what they played against?

[honz]

Where are the decklists of the decks that gave this archetype DTW status

23rd at Gen-con

3 City of Traitors
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Taiga

1 Man-o'-War
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Wall of Roots
1 Raven Familiar
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Eternal Witness
1 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Spike Feeder

4 Aluren
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Impulse
1 Deep Analysis
1 Echoing Truth

Sideboard
4 Divert
3 Stifle
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Echoing Truth
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Hydroblast

Top 8 at Gen-con Prelims

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
3 City of Traitors
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Taiga

1 Man-o'-War
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Raven Familiar
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Dream Stalker
4 Wall of Roots

4 Aluren
4 Force of Will
1 Deep Analysis
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Impulse
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth

Sideboard
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
4 Divert
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Echoing Truth
3 Trickbind


2nd at Ancienct Memory Convention (Japan)

1 Auriok Champion
1 Cavern Harpy
3 Imperial Recruiter
1 Maggot Carrier
3 Man-o'-War
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
4 Intuition
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
4 Living Wish
4 Aluren

4 Bayou
3 Forest
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Man-o'-War
1 Stern Proctor
1 Bone Shredder
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Eternal Witness
4 Divert
4 Engineered Explosives


The list from japan is pretty bad, despite the meta being rather developed. You should also note that all these lists run recruiter. I think that is a mistake, but i guess i dont see non-recruiter putting up any results to help me out on this one.

Also, aluren (both versions) often top 8 in smaller events, but so do alot of other decks. Im sure these lists played against alot of different decks, its not just lucky match-ups that got aluren a DTW status.

Top 8, 40+ person tourny in syracuse

3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
2 Man-O'-War
4 Brainstorm
1 Serum Visions
3 Raven Familiar
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Coiling Oracle
1 Spike Feeder
4 Aluren
4 Wall of Roots
2 Eternal Witness
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
3 Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
3 Polluted Delta

SB:
2 Deep Analysis
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Life From the Loam
1 Hydroblast
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Leyline of the Void


There are some others, but i don't have to time to go fishing around for them right now. The list above actually uses coiling oracles, which is something i have wanted to try. With goyf bashing through your walls, and gobbos falling in popularity, oracle is pretty much a better wall of blossoms. Also, i have been toying with the idea of living wish, with wall of roots / oracle making it alot easier to cast. Also, having 4 extra things to pitch to a force can't hurt.

You would play aluren over breakfast because:
1 - You don't have to buy 4 goyfs. The deck is still expensive, but goyfs are insane...
2 - Unaffected by graveyard hate.
3 - Less affected by creature hate, and counterspells. While they still are a problem, it is less so than with breakfast (from my knowledge).

[J.V.]

1 - You don't have to buy 4 goyfs. The deck is still expensive, but goyfs are insane...


A set of Imperial Recruiters go for $240 easy... I'd say goyfs are pretty cheap in comparison...

[Wallace]

A set of Imperial Recruiters go for $240 easy... I'd say goyfs are pretty cheap in comparison...

This is true but the deck works just fine without Recruiters...

[ForceofWill]

The deck is so much better with recruiter though. He turns your 3 card combo into a two card combo.

[Kronicler]

Is there an accepted best list for this deck? I'm actually thinking about shelling out the cash for the recruiters but I would like a place to at least start for thinking about the rest of the deck.

Kronicler

[etrigan]

The deck is so much better with recruiter though. He turns your 3 card combo into a two card combo.

At the expense of a shakier manabase and slightly more dead cards when Aluren isn't in play.

I dont claim to know which is best. But one is not patently better than the other.

[shteev]

Here's a list that I think warrants some discussion. I really, really like it... or at least I like the vast majority of it.

http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=12148


3 Cavern Harpy
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Essence Warden
2 Eternal Witness
3 Imperial Recruiter
2 Man-o'-War
3 Raven Familiar
1 Sparkmage Apprentice
3 Wall of Roots
1 Wirewood Savage

1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition

4 Cabal Therapy

4 Aluren

3 Ancient Tomb
3 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
1 Taiga
4 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Wooded Foothills

SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 3 Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 Defense Grid


TBH, I'm quite staggered at how the builder of this deck managed to find room for everything... multiple familiars AND recruiters? Good job. I particularly like the way that the decks concession to playing Recruiter is a single Taiga... 90% of the time you only want to play this guy when you've an Aluren on the table.

4 Cabal Therapies - why do so many builds not include 4? Surely, this is our turn 1 play? Don't we want to maximise our chances of being able to cast it?

Ancient Tomb - Having played this I'm becoming very fond of it. Turn 3 kills allow you to keep pace with Breakfast and EtW goblin tokens, and being able to suddenly drop a land which generates 2 mana can allow you to go off against a goblin player who is locking down your mana base with ports and wastelands (I've had a LOT of problems with this). Turn 1 Cabal Therapy, Turn 2 Raven Familiar+Cabal Therapy is a great play, too. I've not tested City of Traitors yet, but I'm sure I'd rather have Ancient Tomb in the control matchup.

Pithing Needle - Love these in the sideboard, they really help out against port/wasteland.

Essense Warden - I'm quite fond of this guy, too, over Spike Feeder. The feeder only gives you infinite life when you're in full blown combo mode, whereas this guy kicks in a little sooner: Warden+Harpy+Aluren gives you the life. I also don't think it hurts having a 1-drop in the deck who can block a lackey (err... ok, probably not, with Fanatic and Gempalm to worry about) or buy you a turn against EtW. Ok, Ok, tiny advantages, but advantages nonetheless.

Wirewood Savage - I'm undecided about him. He's still in my current build because I like having a diversity of combo enablers. Alright, I admit it, because he won me a game once and I feel like I owe it to him.

Sparkmage Apprentice - Absolutely pointless, IMO. Like the Spike Feeder, he only wins you the game when you're in full, undisrupted combo mode, at which point you should be able to win with practically anything.

Brain Freeze - I don't like this, either. A win condition for this deck should work on the turn that you tap out to play Aluren, and this doesn't. TBH I don't think Aluren needs a bunch of different win conditions.

... In fact, I'm not convinced that Aluren needs any win conditions at all, and this is what I'm currently testing:

-1 Sparkmage Apprentice
-1 Brain Freeze
+2 Tinder Wall (for both mana acceleration and lackey blocking)

...but I've left the Essence Warden in, so no Spike Feeder. So how do I win? I swing with a bunch of 2/1s, 1/2s and 1/1s. It sounds crazy, but currently it seems feasible to me. Going off gives you infinite life and allows you to recur FoW, Cabal Therapy and Chain of Vapor an awful lot of times. You ARE drawing most of your deck when you go off, but it's easy to leave 10 or so cards in there, so swinging for 100 damage by the end of the game is realistic.

My lack of win conditions is one reason why I'm quite keen on the lone Coiling Oracle in the deck. It allows you to put extra lands into play on the turn that you go off, and so you can replay Chains of Vapor and Cabal Therapies on that turn. (Brain Freeze, too, for that matter, If I haven't talked you out of playing it yet).

[rsaunder]

Playing Spike Feeder over Essence Warden allows you to keep a 3-color (4-color if you insist upon impereal recruiter, which I also disagree with) manabase. In addition to not having to think about the inclusion of white to be able to cast the occasional warden, spike feeder is infinitely more useful pre-combo. Not only does he give an automatic 4 life if you need it, but his 2/2 ass that pumps up wall of roots/blossoms/whatever is acually quite useful. Sure, warden can come down turn 1, but feeder is just infinitely more versatile and lets you avoid the "swinging with weenies" finisher to boot.

Now, you asked about caball therapy. I've NEVER been a fan of therapy as a 1-drop. Game 1 it's worthless. Games 2 and 3, it's sub-par because you have no information about their opener. If you're counting on it as a 1-dop, glasses of urza might be preferable, because of its repeatability. 3 caball therapy have been included in every list since Lille because of how amazing Intuition=>3x Therapy is. It's solely an anti-counterspell/control measure. The other therapy (and incedently the 4th force of will as well) were boarded in for combo or other places as needed. I tried out a 3/2 split with duress a while back to check out the "first turn disruption" bit and was underwhelmed. This deck doesn't really need that sort of play with force and all of the other creature based stall we run. Oh, and I infinitely perfer a turn 1 brainstorm to set myself up. Just personally.

In your list, you speak of Ancient Tomb as an accelorator to hit turn 3 kills, yet you don't run a playset of wall of roots. Why is this? Against goblins, not only does WoR fix mana, he blocks little green men. Against control, WoR accelorates you a turn and sacs to flash a therapy. Now, if you still decide you need to weaken an already awkward 4-color manabase to play a 2-mana land that shocks you, feel free.

I also agree with your assesment of brain freeze. It sucks, I have no idea why it's seeing play in here. Especially if sparkmage is getting played, you have an instant-speed kill that requires no mana whatsoever. And why the 1-of Wirewood? Sounds useless especially with recruiters to fetch your boys.

[Happy Gilmore]

A show of hands, how many people actually have Imperial Recruiters? Discussing a decklist that few people can actually test seems kind of counter-productive don't you think? Your looking at a $200 base pricetag for a set of uncommons before adding anything else. If by doing so Alluren was hands down one of the best decks in the format I can see justifying it, but I just don't see it.

[rsaunder]

I do not. I did, on the other hand just pay $225 for 2 grim tutors. Pricetag is not a barrier to me, although if it's sufficently worthless (recruiter) I will save my money.

EDIT: And if I really needed the recruiters I would sell foil fetches and BB duals to pay for them.

[shteev]

Playing Spike Feeder over Essence Warden allows you to keep a 3-color (4-color if you insist upon impereal recruiter, which I also disagree with) manabase. In addition to not having to think about the inclusion of white to be able to cast the occasional warden, spike feeder is infinitely more useful pre-combo. Not only does he give an automatic 4 life if you need it, but his 2/2 ass that pumps up wall of roots/blossoms/whatever is acually quite useful. Sure, warden can come down turn 1, but feeder is just infinitely more versatile and lets you avoid the "swinging with weenies" finisher to boot.

You're thinking of Soul Warden. Essence Warden is the timeshifted Planar Chaos version, who costs G.

[rsaunder]

You're thinking of Soul Warden. Essence Warden is the timeshifted Planar Chaos version, who costs G.

Er... what exactly was I thinking? Then subtract that part of my arguement then. It's not as bad, but I still perfer feeder for the above reasons that do not concern manabase instability.

[galeng]

The idea of Aluren combo is so simple and I think people make it too complicated. Here's a list I just came up with on the spot:

//Land
5 Forest
3 Windswept Heath
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
21 Total

//Combo
4 Aluren
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Wirewood Savage
1 Ghitu Slinger
13 Total

//Tempo
4 Eldamri's Vineyard
4 Total

//Disruption
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
15 Total

//Draw and Search
4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
7 Total

//Sideboard
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Divert
4 Engineered Explosives
3 Krosan Grip
15 Total

The sideboard is a little rough I'll admit but the deck packs an amazing disruption package and combos off easier and faster. Vineyard should be maindecked for a turn 2 win possibility. I dont know why the harpy/savage combo isn't mentioned much here, but its probably the best way to win. This also packs the same tempo, draw and mana base as the traditional build.

Please don't flame if there's something wrong. This is an "on the spot build".

[etrigan]

Cavern Harpy is a Beast, not a Bird? That's pretty silly.

But nice find man. It looks REAL solid. Although I think you need some lifegain in there somewhere.

[Nightmare]

//Land
5 Forest
3 Windswept Heath
3 Polluted Delta
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
21 Total

//Combo
4 Aluren
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Wirewood Savage
1 Ghitu Slinger
13 Total

//Tempo
4 Eldamri's Vineyard
4 Total

//Disruption
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
15 Total

//Draw and Search
4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
7 Total

//Sideboard
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Divert
4 Engineered Explosives
3 Krosan Grip
15 Total

So you pay a bunch of life, and draw a bunch of cards, and then do what? Deal your opponent 2 damage with Ghitu Slinger? Where is the combo?

[Jak]

Needs Man-o'-War.

[Wallace]

I am testing an Aluren deck that runs Brain Freeze as the win. Seems like a good choice and seems to be working. You just run the Aluren deck (no recruiters) but run Brain Freeze in place of the feeder. Its really cool cuz you just drop Aluren and then use Coiling Oracle to draw a bunch of cards, I use Essence Warden to gain life and you will have an infinite storm when you cast Freeze. Here is my list:

4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Intuition
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor

4 Wall of Roots
3 Coiling Oracle
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Raven Familiar
2 Man-o-War
2 Eternal Witness
1 Essence Warden

4 Tropical Island
3 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
4 Islands
3 Forest

[conboy31]

One of the main benefits I have found with the Oracle was that it allows the deck to win the turn it plays Aluren, as it is able to flip in a few lands that can be used to cast Brainfreeze. I toyed around with a similar build. Eventually I became frustrated with subpar beats when Alured was denied.

[Wallace]

One of the main benefits I have found with the Oracle was that it allows the deck to win the turn it plays Aluren, as it is able to flip in a few lands that can be used to cast Brainfreeze. I toyed around with a similar build. Eventually I became frustrated with subpar beats when Alured was denied.

This is a problem all Aluren builds can have, thats what the Force of Will's and Cabal Therapy's are for.

[JDunkin00]

Unfortunately recruiters have eluded my purchase list so I have only test it as a proxy. I feel the consistancy greatly improves and mana base well it is fairly shaky to begin with but combo tries to get off before thats too big an issue anyway. I love the list with divert in the sb it used to be one of my all time favorite sideboard cards. Is brainfreeze not that viable kill condition anymore I used to always run it but I hardly see it run here. Just wondering. Kill you now or your draw step.

[arsenalpow]

Its really not necessary once you "combo out" you should have infi life, infi mana, and infi +1 +1 counters for your creatures, and a hand with 3 FoW and 3 blue cards plus another card of your choice...

they will die the next turn, i have never lost a game after i resolved the combo and passed the turn

[JDunkin00]

That surely makes sense. So really you just have to worry about deed already on board. or some kind of therapy flashback sweeper type of shenanagins. Thanks for clueing me in though.

[BKclassic]

If, for some reason, you are still looking for a card to win the the game, I would recommend Rishadan Cutpurse (recur it with Cavern Harpy a bunch times).

It also serves the function of beating Deed or any other permanent that is a problem while going off; you can play around it by doing the lead with Cavern Harpy, respond to trigger by playing Cutpurse trick (so if they pop the Deed, you can respond by returning Cavern Harpy to your hand, then going off at instant speed). And unlike Chain Vapor, it does not require an untapped Island to do this. As a word of caution, also unlike Chain Vapor, it is very unlikely to beat a Meddling Mage on Aluren.

Anyway, probably not necessary, as a hand full counters, creatures and infinite life can probably beat almost anything, but I recently played in a tournament where you had to bring 5 decks, and my Force of Wills were in my Solidarity deck, so I wanted to sure my opponent could do nothing on their turn.

[JDunkin00]

If, for some reason, you are still looking for a card to win the the game, I would recommend Rishadan Cutpurse (recur it with Cavern Harpy a bunch times).

It also serves the function of beating Deed or any other permanent that is a problem while going off; you can play around it by doing the lead with Cavern Harpy, respond to trigger by playing Cutpurse trick (so if they pop the Deed, you can respond by returning Cavern Harpy to your hand, then going off at instant speed). And unlike Chain Vapor, it does not require an untapped Island to do this. As a word of caution, also unlike Chain Vapor, it is very unlikely to beat a Meddling Mage on Aluren.

Anyway, probably not necessary, as a hand full counters, creatures and infinite life can probably beat almost anything, but I recently played in a tournament where you had to bring 5 decks, and my Force of Wills were in my Solidarity deck, so I wanted to sure my opponent could do nothing on their turn.

Nice! Also the chain of vapor on mage comment doesn't make sense. Bounce EOT play Aluren win. You recieve priority when it resolves. Even if they respond to your first creature with mage naming something else recruiter an answer or draw your deck for FOW.

[BKclassic]

Nice! Also the chain of vapor on mage comment doesn't make sense. Bounce EOT play Aluren win. You recieve priority when it resolves. Even if they respond to your first creature with mage naming something else recruiter an answer or draw your deck for FOW.


I meant to say that Chain of Vapor IS an answer to Meddling Mage were Rishadan Cutpurse is not. My point was that you shouldn't automatically cut Chain Vapor just because you have Rishadan Cutpurse, though maybe you should. Other problem cards like Suppresion Field and Arcane Laboratory are usually in the SB, and you can bring in your own SB cards for that.

[MGC_player]

The subpar beats is a problem. The only solution I have had so far is Horned Kavu since it is a 3/4 and also has that return ability. It requires splashing red, but I use Grapeshot as my win condition.

Also how do people feel about using Research/Development for this deck?

[rsaunder]

Its really not necessary once you "combo out" you should have infi life, infi mana, and infi +1 +1 counters for your creatures, and a hand with 3 FoW and 3 blue cards plus another card of your choice...

they will die the next turn, i have never lost a game after i resolved the combo and passed the turnI don't know what the topic of discussion is at the mement (and I couldn't figure it out on this page for whatever reason), but once you combo off, you have infy bounce for creatures, and as many FOW's as you have blue cards in your deck and graveyard, all available at instant speed through whitness recursion. Basically, unless brain freeze resolves on your turn after you mad-combo-out (and you should have therapied it away anyhow) then they will not, ever, resolve a spell.


@MCG_Player: Subpar beats? What?
Also, why in the world would you play research/development?

[Wallace]

To me weather you win with the Feeder Combo or the Storm combo really doesn't matter. I have played both and prefer the Storm build myself. The storm Build can win faster and needs less cards to combo out, Play Aluren, Play a Wall/Bonce a wall with Man-o-War and get one blue mana into play with Coiling Oracle...cast Brain Freeze FTW...

[Shriekmaw]

To me weather you win with the Feeder Combo or the Storm combo really doesn't matter. I have played both and prefer the Storm build myself. The storm Build can win faster and needs less cards to combo out, Play Aluren, Play a Wall/Bonce a wall with Man-o-War and get one blue mana into play with Coiling Oracle...cast Brain Freeze FTW...


I would try to keep the following in mind. I know that you want to win as fast as possible, but the fact is Aluren isn't a straight combo deck. It's a control deck with a combo finish. I believe that strategy has made this deck very successful in the Legacy format.

[MGC_player]

@rsaunder
I just had some bad experiences with people extirpating aluren, that is why I was looking for a few other ways to still win in case I cannot resolve an aluren. Research/development looks like it can help me find an out for this as well as allowing for something like a pseudo-wishboard. I've actually also won a few games without the aluren ever hitting play using horned kavu to bounce and replay the cantripping walls. It's screwy, but my list is kinda strange and still being tweaked.

[JDunkin00]

To me weather you win with the Feeder Combo or the Storm combo really doesn't matter. I have played both and prefer the Storm build myself. The storm Build can win faster and needs less cards to combo out, Play Aluren, Play a Wall/Bonce a wall with Man-o-War and get one blue mana into play with Coiling Oracle...cast Brain Freeze FTW...

I think Cloud of Fairies would be more consistant than oracle. Plus asist if you had to go beat down with out Aluren due to flying. Plus he's free after cip.

[Nastaboi]

Anyone tried squeezing 4 Ponders in yet? I have just done that and think this should be logical step in a deck that wants to find 2+ specific cards to combo out.

[MGC_player]

I'm not sure about the Ponders. Maybe Lim-dul's Vault might be better since you can repeat the effect until you get what you want. I'm not sure if anyone has used that yet though.

[Wallace]

I think Cloud of Fairies would be more consistant than oracle. Plus asist if you had to go beat down with out Aluren due to flying. Plus he's free after cip.

Cloud of Faeries (CoF) was in the first Aluren deck, back when it first broke. I tried it over the Oracle's and was not impressed. Oracle was almost always better, a turn 2 CoF does nothing but a turn 2 Oracle draws a card or puts another land into play. Once the combo gets going the CoF's were ok but I would rather use the Oracle. Remember if played right you will have unlimited life and bouncing Cavern Harpy every turn to replay Oracle won't hurt you.


I'm not sure about the Ponders. Maybe Lim-dul's Vault might be better since you can repeat the effect until you get what you want. I'm not sure if anyone has used that yet though.

I think both Ponder and Lim Dul's Vault need testing. Ponder faster, able to be played turn 1, while Lim's Vault could dig a lot futher than Ponder, not to mention it's an Instant...

[romain7]

I think FOW is nearly useless in this deck. Rishadan Cutpurse can get rid of humility or any other thing and can be MB or SB and LIVING WISHed. wirewoodsavage is essential, as you can find anyyyyyyyyyyy combo piece you need at all, without needing both man o' war and the damn walls.

[romain7]

Birds of paradise speeds this up to a turn three kill as well. 4 wirewood savage is really, very essential to finding the pieces. You could take 10 life in the ass to find a gamewinning brainfreeze. I take that back about the man o' war though. That comes in handy.

[Nastaboi]

FoW isn't the best card in this deck, but no creature will ever remove Humility.

Take my word for Ponder. It is the second Brainstorm, and Brainstorm is the best card in combo deck. Look at Vintage decks, they are all running 4 and other formats will follow.

The problem with Wirewood Savage and Brainfreeze is that they don't do anything until you have the combo going. This has been already stated countless times.

I've been liking Dream Stalker much more than Man-o'-War. Meddling Mages to be removed are rarer and rarer these days.

The deck needs to be prepared for growing use of countertop strategies. While it doesn't stop Aluren itself, it stops all your creatures and MD removal for it.

[Wallace]

FoW isn't the best card in this deck, but no creature will ever remove Humility.

Take my word for Ponder. It is the second Brainstorm, and Brainstorm is the best card in combo deck. Look at Vintage decks, they are all running 4 and other formats will follow.

The problem with Wirewood Savage and Brainfreeze is that they don't do anything until you have the combo going. This has been already stated countless times.

I've been liking Dream Stalker much more than Man-o'-War. Meddling Mages to be removed are rarer and rarer these days.

The deck needs to be prepared for growing use of countertop strategies. While it doesn't stop Aluren itself, it stops all your creatures and MD removal for it.

I agree with you on Wirewood Savage but Dream Stalker is just a bad Man-o-War (MoW). Why would you want to run a card that is worse than another? MoW can return any creature, Meddling Mage is just one exsample of what you can bounce.

[Bahamuth]

I agree with you on Wirewood Savage but Dream Stalker is just a bad Man-o-War (MoW). Why would you want to run a card that is worse than another? MoW can return any creature, Meddling Mage is just one exsample of what you can bounce.

Dream Stalker isn't targeted, so your opponent can't respond with an StP on the creature you just targeted. You could go Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Raven and win from there easily, without targeting a single creature, ever.

[Nihil Credo]

Rishadan Cutpurse can get rid of humility
I respectfully disagree, sir.

[Wallace]

Dream Stalker isn't targeted, so your opponent can't respond with an StP on the creature you just targeted. You could go Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Raven and win from there easily, without targeting a single creature, ever.

Good point, didn't see that, just last night I lost to a STP in resp. to my Man-o-War. I will have to give Stalker a try...

[Nastaboi]

Blocking Tarmogoyf and living is just so much better than bouncing one to hand to be replayed. Being able to dodge targeted removal is also nice.

[Wallace]

So I want to play Aluren this weekend at the GAGG event. What does the current, non-recruiter list look like?

[Nastaboi]

This is what I'd play:

4 Aluren

4 Wall of Roots
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Dream Stalker
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Intuition

4 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Chain of Vapor

4 Polluted Delta
4 Foothills/Heath
4 Tropical Island
3 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
1 Undergroung Sea

SB: Diverts for discard
Tinder Walls for aggro
Explosives and Deeds for Threshold
Thoughtseizes and Extirpates for combo

[Wallace]

@ Nastaboi

Looks good, you forgot one thing though, Coiling Oracle is awsome!!! I am going to play a version that looks more like:


4 Wall of Roots
3 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
2 Dream Stalker
1 Spike Feeder
2 Eternal Witness
3 Coiling Oracle

4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Intuition

4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor

4 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Island
1 Undergroung Sea

I will post results after the event, including the SB and exsact list I played.

[Nastaboi]

Looks good, you forgot one thing though, Coiling Oracle is awsome!!!

No I didn't and it is not. Creature that just cantrips and chumps once really is not cutting it, even if it accelerates mana 1/3 of time.

I am convinced that running less than four Ponders is a serious mistake. The card is better than Brainstorm in the deck, unless you are facing heavy discard. Nevertheless, you should be running four of each.

Four Raven Familiars are equally important. You can start going off without Harpy, but without Raven your other creatures do nothing. You don't even have to find Harpy right away, because you draw into Dream Stalkers, other Familiars and cantrips, and one Chain of Vapor will guarantee you what you need. Coiling Oracle won't do you much good when going off.

I suggest that you read Toad's old primer from SCG, it really hasn't aged any.

[Happy Gilmore]

No I didn't and it is not. Creature that just cantrips and chumps once really is not cutting it, even if it accelerates mana 1/3 of time.

I am convinced that running less than four Ponders is a serious mistake. The card is better than Brainstorm in the deck, unless you are facing heavy discard. Nevertheless, you should be running four of each.

Four Raven Familiars are equally important. You can start going off without Harpy, but without Raven your other creatures do nothing. You don't even have to find Harpy right away, because you draw into Dream Stalkers, other Familiars and cantrips, and one Chain of Vapor will guarantee you what you need. Coiling Oracle won't do you much good when going off.

I suggest that you read Toad's old primer from SCG, it really hasn't aged any.

Coiling Oracle is stupid good when going off. I remember doing so with two oracles and a Chain of Vapor. I was able to draw cards and sack lands as I put them into play with Oracles, tapping them first to play Brainstorms and eventually an Intuition.

I do however agree with the need for 4 Harpy.

[Nastaboi]

You mean 4 Familiar not Harpy right? Harpy does nothing before going off. If you have at least one Familiar, then any other creature is better draw than Oracle. And if you draw Chain of Vapor with Raven, you have won. Rare situation of having two Oracles with Chain and no other ways to start combo is hardly a basis of running often less optimal card.

[arsenalpow]

I've got an idea that I don't think has been addressed in this thread, I looked through it and read nothing concerning the c/b top package in Aluren.

What is the absolute rock solid minimums necessary to function at a control oriented pace...I'm talking about a normal aluren list that wants to set up its board position, strip threats from an opponents hand, and counter relevent threats.

This is what I'm thinking are absolute necessities (non-recruiter version)

4 Aluren
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o-War
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

My idea is to try and put the counterbalance/top shell into this deck which would allow the player to set up early board control then finish off the opponent with the aluren combo, here is my preliminary list

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Aluren
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o-War
3 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Roots
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
4 Forest
2 Island

You might be thinking Where's Counterbalance, I replaced the wall of blossoms x3 with sensei's top x3, but i'm not sure where to start cutting for the 3 counterbalances

my first thought was to cut 1 combo piece; either a man-o-war or a harpy, then cut 1 chain of vapor and 1 wall of roots....any thoughts?

[romain7]

Why should you not run wirewood savage? ALlowing yourself to draw up any combo is priceless.

Also, rishidan cutpurse can be quite valuable at times.

[alebronwebb]

Wirewood Savage is only useful when going off, even at that point Raven/Recruiter simply out-class since they dig and filter so much better.

[Toad]

It is nice to see there are still players who are not sold on the Imperial Recruiter builds... I do not really have much time for MTG right now, but I still try to keep my Aluren builds up to date in case I can attend to some tournament. I'm obviously still running a Recruiter-free build, with a straight Bug mana base.

From what I could see lately by reading various Legacy boards, the metagame has shifted towards Tarmogoyf-based Aggro-Control decks, Control decks (mostly board Control ones) such as Landstill, fast Empty the Warrens Combo decks and the good ol' Goblins. This shift has forced me to change a few things to my original build, the one which got played at GP Lille and discussed in the aforementioned SCG article.

1. Combo decks are faster than before. Ill Gotten Gains based decks had a critical turn 3, High Tide was slower. Now Empty the Warrens allows Combo to go off by turn 1, which means Cabal Therapy does not provide an efficient disruption against them on the play.

2. Tarmogoyf is bigger than Werebear, and grows faster. Werebear was a lesser threat because it would usually be 1/1 stopped by your 8 Walls for the first 3 turns, and still handled by Wall of Roots when Threshold'ed. Tarmogoyf can blow your Wall of Blossoms on turn 3. Nimble Mongoose is still a minor annoyance overall.

3. Brain Freeze and Auriok Salvagers have completely disappeared from Legacy, and I cannot think of any deck which can beat infinite life.

This lead me to the following deck list, with a bigger emphasis on the Aggro side of the build than for the previous lists, which were mainly Control-Combo. This one is truly Aggro-Control-Combo.

1 Island
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Polluted Delta
3 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
6 Forest

1 Essence Warden
1 Eternal Witness
2 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o'-War
4 Wall of Blossoms + Wall of Roots
4 Raven Familiar
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Aluren

2 Chain of Vapor
3 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm

. Tarmogoyfs. Hm, yeah! A great great Control element, better than the regular Walls, which allows a more efficient Aggro mode. Tarmogoyf greatly improves the Aggro matchup - including Goblins - and the Threshold matchup. It is also better against Control because it forces their interaction. They will deal with your Tarmogoyf, but the ressources they will invest for this will not be used for stopping your Aluren. Do not fight over Tarmogoyfs against Control, if they use Force of Will on these, great.

. Essence Warden is the new life component over Spike Feeder. Dropping it first turn on the play against Empty the Warrens gives you a Time Walk, and it is easier to "go off" afterwards since you can achieve infinite life with Man-o'-War alone. Man-o'-War is better than Dream Stalker as it is another Aggro-Control element (unlike Dream Stalker, which is purely Control-Combo) and has a nice synergy with Cabal Therapy, a trick you will use much more often because of the Tarmogoyfs. This makes Cavern Harpy less important for the deck - that is good, Cavern Harpy was terrible anyways - and going down to 2 is fine. In metagames where Chalice of the Void is rampant, Spike Feeder seems better than Essence Warden though.

. The Wall package. This is a tough call. With Tarmogoyfs in there, you either have to sacrifice a Green mana or a card. A 2 / 2 split is clearly incorrect. Wall of Roots is better against Goblins and their Rishadan Ports, but Wall of Blossoms is better against pretty much anything else. I'm more sold on 4 Wall of Blossoms, as keeping a good card draw is nice and helps all your 3 game plans.

. No "win condition". When you have infinite life and access to Force of Will recursion, and when your opponent has no creature on the board, winning should not be a concern. Tarmogoyf is fine.

The sideboard is vastly open, the deck can take plenty approaches post board depending on the metagame, either Aggro oriented (works great against B/W Confident for example) or Control oriented. I suggest running a good package of Pernicious Deeds as usual, as well as the 4th Cabal Therapy.

Nastaboi - I'm interested in reading your thoughts about Ponder here. I have never considered this, it is an interesting idea.

[Nightmare]

Toad - Have you tested at all with Coiling Oracle in the slots occupied by some number of Familiars and Wall of Blossoms? In my brief experiences with the deck, Oracle is fairly insane, as it provides additional mana/accelleration as well as card draw. He basically never misses. The tradeoff of dig vs. accel, or a bigger ass vs. pitching to FoW seems like the largest detractor to the card, but if you haven't yet, see if you can find room for him.

[Wallace]

@ Toad

Have you looked at Coiling Oracle over Wall of Blossoms...yeah it's only a 1/1 and won't live through any blocking assinment but the added bonus of dropping a revealed land into play is amazing. I figure Oracle has the same CC as the Wall and still draw a card, With more decks useing Tarmogoyf as there kill, both the wall of blossoms and Coiling Oracle will die when blocking...

EDIT: Also Read above, Nightmare can post faster than me...

[alebronwebb]

This might be the most foolish thing I've said on these boards, but here it goes. I'm actually considering replacing black with white, pretty much for Meddling Mage, to have an answer to Krosan Grip. Cabal Therapy can pick it away too, but MM could be more reliable at it (but, yeah, he can be killed). Has anyone tried MM in the deck, please tell me I'm wrong to worry so much about Grip.

[arsenalpow]

I've never tried to jam white into the deck but i know MM is more pertinent of a threat than grip has been for me. Playing against a White thresh build is a pain because they can drop MM on aluren and plow your walls to push through the beats

I tried jamming 3 tops and 3 counterbalance into the deck but it just didn't feel right. I think a goyf plan seems like a good idea but im still a little leary of using essence warden. I never end up dropping the feeder until aluren is out so the casting cost of feeder or warden is irrelevant to me because its going to be 0.

[Toad]

I tested Coiling Oracle when a french player suggested it quite long ago on our french Legacy boards. I went back to Wall of Blossoms after a few games, mostly for two reasons :

. Coiling Oracle is an awful Control element. Wall of Blossoms can hold a Goblin or Nimble Mongoose forever. This is very important for the main deck strategy.

. Coiling Oracle forces Tropical Island on turn 2, when you always want two Forests on turn 2 in order to have a safe turn 3 Intuition or Wall + Brainstorm. Oracle will only accelerate you 33% of the time, and in a lot of matchups I'd rather have that Tropical Island in hand drawn from Wall of Blossoms than in play to cast Coiling Oracle, because of Intuition vs. Wasteland.

Regarding the Threshold comment above, UGr is a far worst matchup than UGw. Meddling Mage is barely a threat when you have man-o'-war and Chain of Vapor, and Wall of Blossoms will hold that forever. OTOH UGr Threshold has a good amount of burn - which means your Control elements are less efficient - and nasty Red Elemental Blasts in the SB. Relying on Disenchant effect is also not the best plan in order to beat Aluren (especially if you are a true Control deck, Control beats Aluren by going Aggro or Aggro-Control), because the deck is Control (or Aggro-Control) before Combo. Krosan Grip is 3CC, so quite easy to read in your opponent's hand. Krosan Grip will also often force your opponent to slow play his hands, because he has to triple Rishadan Port himself.

Hardcasting Spike Feeder and Essence Warden occurs pretty often in actual games. Spike Feeder is better here since it is immune to Swords to Plowshares.

Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top are good. Nevertheless, that does not mean one should try to fit them in every single deck, even if that does not require a splash.
Counter Top is not Tarmogoyf ;)

[Roldaice]

For the moment, I prefer 3 wall of roots / 1 wall of blossoms in your Tarmogoyf version.

[georgjorge]

Dream Stalker isn't targeted, so your opponent can't respond with an StP on the creature you just targeted. You could go Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Raven and win from there easily, without targeting a single creature, ever.

Not targeting allows you to bounce Recruiter, getting an extra use out of it. But any opponent would kill your Stalker in response to you playing Harpy, making you fizzle (you can't play Harpy and respond to it with Stalker since you have to play Stalker --> Recruiter to get the Harpy first).

As for the other discussions...Ponder and Brainstorm should be four each, and I think what Toad said about you wanting two forests on the first two turns, and thus Wall being better than Oracle is right - Wasteland is a big threat to this deck. Furthermore, I'm wondering about the total lack of City of Traitors (I play three) - even if it IS a controllish combo deck, it is one with a combo piece that costs four mana, which is a lot, and making the third turn kill more consistent is great. It also allows for second turn Ravens and Intuition to set it up, although you should be sure that there's no Wasteland waiting.

[honz]

I think we are writting off oracle too quickly. Just slamming a couple into the original decklist will not allow you to see what they can really do. Oracle is best used with another debatable card: lim-dul's vault.

The fact that vault is 2 mana, is just insane (even though its your 2 secondary colors). Vault is very comprable to intuition, but i would not replace intuition entirely. I also like to up the island count to facilitate oracles, and vaults. If you run essense warden ( i would), then the life loss from vault is even less of a factor (it shouldn't be anyhow).

Between vault, familiar, and brainstorm; oracle will accel you way more than 33%. It is also blue, so it (and vault) pitches to FoW, and combos with harpy alone. Aluren + harpy + oracle + 10 life = gg. Its as simple as that.

If you are using goyfs (you should), then the fact that oracle just chumps, is less of a worry. Remember, a goyf and an oracle can kill a goyf; a goyf and a wall won't.

I have really been liking 2-3 oracles, 2-3 vaults (right now im going 3 oracles, 2 vault, 2 intuition). Room is really the only problem

[Funky-kun]

Coiling Oracle is also good when you have both Brainstorm and Ponder as four-ofs in your deck. In this situaltion the chance of accelerating into Aluren on turn 3, combined with the effect of wall of roots, is a lot higher. I know comboin out on turn 3 is not the aim of the deck, but sometimes it just happens and you win.

[P-AiR]

This deck really intrigues me because of the different possibilities that come from the combo..

However I would like to ask the players who have played Aluren extensively, how does this deck work without the main card, Aluren?

I'm sure if a player wanted to get rid of Aluren they could, since there are a vast amount of removal spells (i.e disenchant or counters) out there.

I'm assembling this deck and it seems like the only card I would be unable to get any time soon is intuition.. How essential is this card? Could I replace it with a cheap substitution is what I'm getting at.

[conboy31]

I do not have a ton of practice with the deck, but you can get a real good idea what the deck is like (in regards to winning the game, not stopping the opponent) by glancing at the creatures.

Without Aluren you have cabal and Fow to slow them down, but that does not win you the game. To win the game w/out Aluren revolves around swinging with scrub creatures and possibly recuring tricks with a Witness. Imagine a Survival deck without survival then -70%.

[alebronwebb]

"Without Aluren you have cabal and Fow to slow them down, but that does not win you the game. To win the game w/out Aluren revolves around swinging with scrub creatures and possibly recuring tricks with a Witness. Imagine a Survival deck without survival then -70%."

I hate to be the one to say it, Tarmogoyf is one of the best things to happen to the deck in a while. A good shield, and an alternative win-con

[honz]

Without aluren you basically become a terrible faerie stompy deck. Other than your flyers, you can use some harpy trickery to play around with everything. Man-o-wars can also bounce things around enough that you could get a goyf or 2 to connect.

Intuition is pretty important, especially in the control MU. Your other options would be:
lim-dul's vault
chord of calling
impulse / ponder
coiling oracle
fact or fiction


That's all i can really think of. There is really nothing else that offers the tutor ability that intuition does, especially with therapies.

[P-AiR]

Has anyone tried Orim's Chant in the deck?

Or is it too redundant? With the Cabal Therapies and the Force of Wills?

[kkoie]

The problem with Chant is it requires you to run a shoddy manabase w/ your fourth color. That, in my opinion, is the biggest reason I gave up on imperial recruiters 2 years ago. If you consider the imperial ver. of aluren, chant would make that manabase even worse!

[Maveric78f]

I tested Coiling Oracle when a french player suggested it quite long ago on our french Legacy boards. I went back to Wall of Blossoms after a few games, mostly for two reasons :

. Coiling Oracle is an awful Control element. Wall of Blossoms can hold a Goblin or Nimble Mongoose forever. This is very important for the main deck strategy.

. Coiling Oracle forces Tropical Island on turn 2, when you always want two Forests on turn 2 in order to have a safe turn 3 Intuition or Wall + Brainstorm. Oracle will only accelerate you 33% of the time, and in a lot of matchups I'd rather have that Tropical Island in hand drawn from Wall of Blossoms than in play to cast Coiling Oracle, because of Intuition vs. Wasteland.


- why would you play only forest fetches? I would play half forest half islands.
- coiling oracle is blue and can be pitched to FoW (which has very few removable cards finally, you rarely want to remove intuition or brainstorm).
- coiling oracle is blue, can dig with harpy and even find some mana to intuition/brainstorm when you're full tap.
- coiling oracle enables turn 1 brainstorm.


Originally Posted by Bahamuth
Dream Stalker isn't targeted, so your opponent can't respond with an StP on the creature you just targeted. You could go Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Raven and win from there easily, without targeting a single creature, ever.

Not targeting allows you to bounce Recruiter, getting an extra use out of it. But any opponent would kill your Stalker in response to you playing Harpy, making you fizzle (you can't play Harpy and respond to it with Stalker since you have to play Stalker --> Recruiter to get the Harpy first).

Actually, that's because he does it bad:
Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> spike feeder

(non split second) Removal proof and life loss free. There is 1 recruiter too many. You could even search for 2 harpies, if you want to be split second (creature) removal proof.

Actually, I find shrieking drake better than dream stalker, but that's probably because I like to play several times my CIP creatures and 1 mana less is always cool.

The deck has a lot of problems to find 20 blue cards and a lot of these blue cards are crucial for the deck. That's the main reason why I recommend the use of coiling oracle over wall of blossom.

[honz]

As already stated, chant = 4 colors = bad.

In regards to fetches, i run a 4/3 split in favor of forest fetches. Since the deck needs GG to win and can function with only one island, this seems like the best compramise. I don't think anyone is advocating running all forest fetches (toad's newest list doesn't).

Coiling Oracle can be a misleading card. I think people get too caught up in speculation over what it could do, and tend to overestimate its worth. You run 22 blue cards; of those, the only ones you don't really want to remove are the 2 harpies. Loosing the other cards will slow you down, but the tempo swing gained by just using the force should compensate for it. Also, let us not forget that oracle will more than likely be played turn 2, thus negating any pitchable effect. If you need to use a force before turn 2, it would probably be worth pitching an intuition to stop the same spell.


The main reason to run oracle over wall of blossoms is because of its combination with harpy under aluren. Going off necropotence style is rather nice at times, however by running goyf as your sole blocker, your life becomes a rather scarse resource.

I would only recomend running oracle in a meta where aggro is almost non-existant. With goyf as your only sizable creature, you are being rather suicidal in your approach.

[Vetinari]

As paradoxical as it may sound, I am concerned goyf is simply too good for this deck. An important role it still needs to preform is being a wall. Unfortunately unlike a lowly Wall of Root, goyf has a neon "kill me" sing over it's head which is somewhat detrimental to holding the fort. Enter the other "best creature ever" -- Psychatog.

Besides not being a goyf it has a couple of other strengths:

+ pitches to FoW
+ shrinks goyfs
+ actually kills goyfs
+ black (dodges some removal, can block Shriekmaw, etc.)
+ sometimes just wins
+ less likely to get hit by Counterbalance

on the other hand it:

- costs more (this can be especially problematic as the meta is speeding up)
- colours are wrong for early development

Starting from Toad's latest list I went:

4 Wall of Blossoms

-4 Tarmogoyf
-3 Forest
-1 Bayou

+3 Psychatog
+1 Ponder
+1 Underground Sea
+1 Wooded Foothills
+1 Windswept Heath
+1 Polluted Delta

The land mix probably needs more tweaking. I do however like Chapin's idea of protecting your lands with fetches rather than relying on basics. As an added bonus they also feed the tog. [EDIT: and make your subsequent draws better; especially important when going off.]

I second Nastaboi's enthusiasm for Ponder. It's a powerhouse! I recommend changing 1 Harpy for 1 Ponder to anyone running 3 Harpies.

[Frenkill]

Hi,

This is my version:

// Mainboard
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Taiga
2 Forest
1 Island
2 City of Traitors
3 Imperial Recruiter
1 Shrieking Drake
1 Man-o'-War
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness
3 Wall of Blossoms
2 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Aluren
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Living Wish

// Sideboard
1 City of Traitors
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Eternal Witness
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Rishadan Cutpurse
1 Shriekmaw
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Stern Proctor
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Leyline of the Void

In my opinion FoW is not necessary.
I think Thoughtseize/Duress is definetly to play over FoW.

- You don't have to pitch a card.
- You can see your oponents hand -> Synergy to Therapy.
- You are not forced to play more blue cards than you actually want.

I tried to play the combo parts as few as possible.
There are 1 Harpy, 1 Drake, 1 Jellyfish, 1 Feeder, 1 Witness.

You need only 1 Harpy in the recruiter-version. It is not affected by Bolts, Swords...

You need 1 Drake, 1 Jellyfish or 2 Drakes minimum, to not lose the combo by opponents instant removal.
I play the Split, cause the Jellyfish is the better card.
You can board 1 of them out after the first game, if your opponent doesn't play instant removal.

I decide to play 1 Spike Feeder over Auriok Champion or Essence Warden. Spike Feeder is better than Essence Warden outside the combo. Auriok Champion does nothing outside the combo and you don't need the pro black/red.

Please tell me, what do you think about that.

(Sorry for my bad english.)

[P-AiR]

I like Force of Will over Thoughtseize because of the mana issue. You want to go off as soon as possible. That one black mana for thoughtseize may mean another turn. Whereas if you're holding a FoW in hand you don't have to. Cabal Therapy costs one black as is and that should be enough discard..

I guess the bottom line is would you rather wait another turn or be one turn faster but may have to pitch away a card for FoW.

[Michael Keller]

...may have to pitch away a card for FoW.

And typically the blue cards in your hand are (arguably) the most important ones (combo pieces). Thoughtseize just says get rid of it; waiting the turn is almost negligible if you play Thoughtseize the turn before.

[Vetinari]

Something as ubiquitous as SDT completely foils the Thoughtseize plan. Not to mention people tend to draw a card during their turn which makes let's-wait-a-turn even less appealing.

On a more theoretical level, consider a situation where the opponent has two relevant threats. With the active approach it's you who are spending resources first. This puts your opponent in a very advantageous position as he can play the second threat unmolested. While with a reactive answer he is the first to spend resources decreasing the probability of having enough left to follow-up with the second threat.

Besides, even though this deck has one of the best inevitabilities around, let's not kid ourselves. Sometimes you just can't wait another turn.

[Michael Keller]

This deck plays wayy more than enough defensive creatures where waiting a turn to knock a disruptive spell out of an opponent's hand is just fine. Even if you do it turn one, that's no problem.

[Versus]

I don't even play this deck and I pretty much suck all around, but if wanting to have a back up counter, not pitch a card, and go off a turn sooner than waiting, why not say Pact of Negation?

I'm sure it's probably already been thought of and dismissed. Just thought I'd blurt it out for no good reason...

[Vetinari]

This deck plays wayy more than enough defensive creatures where waiting a turn to knock a disruptive spell out of an opponent's hand is just fine. Even if you do it turn one, that's no problem.
Ern, no:

1) fast aggro is still a problem.

2) combo. Not just in terms of speed, but also something like TES with multiple venues of going off has a much easier time playing through sorcery speed discard then a counter. where with proper timing you can waste their whole hand in one fell swoop.

3) black is your ternary colour. In face of LD it can seriously hurt your development to go for black too early.

Don't get me wrong FoW is not be-all (although it comes pretty close), that is why we board it out in some match-ups. However not having it in the first place would significantly weaken the deck's overall strategy.

[EDIT:]

I don't even play this deck and I pretty much suck all around, but if wanting to have a back up counter, not pitch a card, and go off a turn sooner than waiting, why not say Pact of Negation?
Becouse you often don't win on the turn you go off (especially with builds like Toad's latest).

[honz]

Tog is simply not a substitute for goyf because it costs 1 more. We already run 0 turn 1-drop creatures, and going down to 4 two-drop creatures would be a serious mistake. Also, your turn 3 is crucial with harpy, man-o-war, intuition, witness, spike and deed all becoming factors.

I used to run duress in place of FoW, simply because i didn't own forces. The main issue that comes up, is this forces you to run a random 1-of hard counter, so that you can pass your turn and not loose to wrath of god or w/e (I used 1 foil). That means you are already running 1 FoW, why not just run 4. The reasons vetinari mentioned are the other problem with cutting force.

[Michael Keller]

Ern, no:

1) fast aggro is still a problem.

2) combo. Not just in terms of speed, but also something like TES with multiple venues of going off has a much easier time playing through sorcery speed discard then a counter. where with proper timing you can waste their whole hand in one fell swoop.

3) black is your ternary colour. In face of LD it can seriously hurt your development to go for black too early.

Don't get me wrong FoW is not be-all (although it comes pretty close), that is why we board it out in some match-ups. However not having it in the first place would significantly weaken the deck's overall strategy.

[EDIT:]

Becouse you often don't win on the turn you go off (especially with builds like Toad's latest).

Em, yes:

1.) Fast aggro is not a problem. If it were a constant threat to the success of this deck, it wouldn't be established. Walls buy you plenty of time, as do bounce effects.

2.) Sorcery speed discard at one to cast is much better than playing Force of Will and pitching a potentially important creature and/or critical tutor effect to win the game. T.E.S., in my experience playing against the deck, does have a difficult time dealing through sorcery speed discard in the early going. This isn't Solidarity we're talking about. If you don't combo out without protection, then you have to face Orim's Chant and Abeyance.

3.) Then you shouldn't fetch to get your lands putting yourself at risk and play conservative until you can win the game. You play alternate mana producers so that shouldn't be a problem. That's just bad logic.

[cwt1220]

I am going to be playing in a meta of goblins, Igg, survival, and some janky decks. I was wondering if anyone can help me with the Sb, and how to use it without hurting the deck too much

thanks
-Chris-

[Frenkill]

Thank you for posting your comment to my FoW-Duress problem.

I found a card that shall be played in this Deck replacing Spike Feeder.
It's Kitchen Finks.

Just see the powerlevel from both cards outside the combo.

Spike Feeder most times is only 2/2 Body +4 Life.

Kitchen Finks are 3/2 Body +2 Life + Persist (Return to game as a 2/1 Body +2 Life when put into GY) You can chump block any fat creature and chump it next turn again.

[P-AiR]

However, Feeder has the option to pump up your creatures which is important because you get to kill your opponent next turn after pumping your creatures into 100/100's ..

Unless you have another kill option besides pumping up your creatures with feeder which there are with brainfreeze + cloud of fairies or ghitu slinger or whatever is on your mind.

[Frenkill]

I play
Wall of Roots and Wall of Blossoms -> infinite carddraw and infinite green mana -> Living Wish -> kill option

I think no one wants to play that deck without a real win option. The Spike Feader kill isn't good.
When you are not playing a real win option your oponent can play pernicious deed and keep it in play or keep a Wrath of God in his hand. So you can't win with your combo with your 100/100-creatures plan.
Also that aditional turn for your opponent can be important if he is playing fast combo.

[P-AiR]

It's true, no one would want to play a deck without a real kill option.. That's why so many people have only gone into tournaments with feeder.

So what are your kill options that you fetch with Living Wish? I'm not too fond to go through the process of making a heck a lot of mana to pump up my creatures only to let my opponent have one turn to decide their fate either.

I just like Feeder a lot more because it has two options instead of one, it can gain life or pump up your creatures.

Kitchen Finks on the other hand can only gain life unless you can show me a very good way to abuse the persist.

[Funky-kun]

I play

When you are not playing a real win option your oponent can play pernicious deed and keep it in play or keep a Wrath of God in his hand. So you can't win with your combo with your 100/100-creatures plan.
Also that aditional turn for your opponent can be important if he is playing fast combo.

The additional turn has not proven to be relevant in practice because no deck can go through Force of Will recrusion equal to the number of the blue cards left in your deck.

EDIT: Just saw your build and noticed you didn't have FoW in, imo that is a big mistake.

[MattH]

Also, Chain of Vapor proves remarkably good at removing a Deed...

[Pulp_Fiction]

I am just curious about the Imperial Recruiter build. I do not have all of the cards but I have proxied up a few versions and the Recruiter ones seem the best, or at least the most consistent. Also, Goyf Should be in here as an alternate kill option shouldn't it? Recently at my local tournament someone brough Recruiter Aluren and split in the top 4 with it out of about 23-26 people. From all of the builds I have played I liked this one the best. At first the Goyf plan seemed really dumb, Wall of Blossoms should occupy that spot, but then I got to playing the deck and Goyf was a LOT better. Here is my build, it is very standard and based off of a version I found on deckcheck.net and the one I saw at my local tournament:

1x Spike Feeder
1x Cavern Harpy
1x Eternal Witness
1x Ghitu Slinger
1x Man-o-War
2x Dream Stalker
3x Imperial Recruiter
4x Wall of Roots
4x Tarmogoyf

3x Cabal Therapy
4x Intuition
4x Living Wish
4x Thoughtseize

4x Aluren

1x Swamp
1x Island
2x Forest
3x Windswept Heath
3x Wooded Foothills
3x Polluted Delta
3x Bayou
3x City of Traitors
4x Tropical Island

Sideboard:
1x Imperial Recruiter
1x Man-o-War
1x Viridian Shaman
1x Eternal Witness
1x Maggot Carrier
1x Bone Shredder
1x Stern Proctor
1x City of Traitors
3x Krosan Grip
4x Leyline of the Void

One card I am really wanting to test out in the SB is Leyline of Lifeforce. This deck can struggle with heavy control and occassionally has problems with countertop, so I thought about Leyline of Lifeforce which allows no creature spells to be countered at all by any means (IE counterbalance). Any thoughts from people who have experience with the Recruiter version?

[revenge_inc]

At first the Goyf plan seemed really dumb, Wall of Blossoms should occupy that spot, but then I got to playing the deck and Goyf was a LOT better.
OMG, Goyf takes over another deck :eek:
I will admit to never having played Aluren or having played against it in any Legacy tournament. In what matchups does this deck want to go on the beatdown?
Would you not want to leave in at least 1 Wall of Blossoms to allow you to draw your whole deck?